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Law and Social Theoty

A Pluto series
Series editor PETER FITZPATRICK
Professor of Law and Social Theory, University of Kent

Dangerous Supplements
EDITED BY PETER FITZPATRICK

The Critical Lawyers'Handbook


EDITED BY IAN GRIGG-SPALL AND PADDY IRELAND

Family Law Matters


KATHERINE O'DONOVAN

The Wrongs ofTort


JOANNE CONAGHAN AND WADE MANSELL

Disbling Laws, EnablingActs


CAROLINE GOODING

FOUCAULT AND LAW

Towards a Sociology of Law as Governance

ALAN HUNT and


GARY WICKHAM

Pluto

Press

London Boulder, Colorado

To Bames, Jo, Ros

First published 1994 by Pluto Press


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and 5500 Central Avenue
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Copyright 1994 Alan Hunt and Gary Wickham
The right of Alan Hunt and Gary Wickham to be identified as the
authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
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Contents

vi
vii

Acknowledgements
Preface

Part One
1

An Introduction to Foucault

Part Two
2
3

Foucault on Law

Law and Modernity


Critique of Foucault's Expulsin of Law

Part Three
4
5
6
7

Michel Foucault: An Introduction

39
59

Deploying Foucault for a Sociology of


Law as Govemance

Govemance and its Principies


Law as Govemance
Method Principies for the Sociology of Law as Govemance
Conclusin: The Sociology of Law as Govemance at Work

75
99
117
127
133
13 7
145

Notes
References
Index

Acknowledgements

We thank the foliowing people for their kind and helpful comments
on various aspects of this book: Cora Baldock, Michael Booth, Kerry
Carrington, Ian Cook, Patricia Harris, Barry Hindess, Paul Hirst, Russell
Hogg, Gavin Kendall, Jeff Malpas, Pat O'Malley, Nikolas Rose, David
Silverman, Derek Smith, Bill Taylor, Grahame Thompson and Deborah
Tyler. We are extremely grateful to Yolie Masnada for her diligent help
with the preparation of the manuscript of Part Three.

Preface

The work of Michel Foucault contines to excite controversy. Passions


often run high; his ame still produces more partisanship than dispassionate evaluation. It is difficult not to come down either for or
against a man who himself delighted in the controversy he provoked.
Yet despite the polemics it is already clear, even though his writings
have had little chance to gather dust and important parts remain
unpublished, that he has become a major intellectual landmark of the
twentieth century.
Our book sets itself two limited but nevertheless important objectives.
It explores what Foucault has to say about law and it uses his work in
the construction of a new framework for the sociology of law. This goes
beyond what Foucault himself says and in doing so we attempt to
overcome some of the limitations and weaknesses of his work on law.
One of the stimuli for this exploration of Foucault on law is the
serious lack of attention his work has attracted from those who make
law the central focus of their work. There are two main reasons for this
neglect. The first is that law never formed a central interest or focus
for Foucault. There is no one book, article or interview that can be
directly added to the literature of law. The second reason is more
pervasive. Legal scholarship, whether it be academic writing directed
at legal academics or texts for law students, exhibits a long-standing
intellectual insularity. This is especially true of the Anglo-American
tradition of legal scholarship. There is a narrow range of writing that
is regarded as relevant. It takes a long time before work generated outside
the law schools gains admission even to the portis of the legal
academy. Even such a major thinker as Max Weber, who has so much
to say that remains of relevance to modern law, is still not routinely
part of the literature of law (Hunt 1978). It is little wonder then that
Foucault has gained only the most marginal attention within legal schol
arship. The analytic bent of Anglo-American legal philosophy barely
recognises Foucault as a philosopher, while the empiricist legal history
and socio-legal studies pay little attention to Foucault as historian. In
so far as Foucault has a presence in the curriculum it is in criminology,
but here there is a rather narrow focus on his account of the history
of the asylum and the prison.
vii

viii

Foucault and Law

This book aims to help overcome this absence and to demnstrate


the pertinence of Foucault for contemporary issues in legal studies. We
stress that the neglect of Foucault cannot be made good by a mere
packaging of his direct comments on matters legal. He has a great deal
to say about law and even more that has legal relevance, but no
amount of stitching together of this material can deliver 'Foucault's
theory of law'. Foucault does not have a theory of law. He does not have
one because law is never one of his major objects of inquiry. Consequently we do not set out to construct a 'Foucaultian theory of law'.
But we do contend that an exploration of his work can contribute to
the construction of a new and fruitful approach to the exploration of
legal phenomena.
This book has three parts. Part One, which is composed of one long
chapter, introduces Foucault's thoughtto a readership which is familiar
with law as a significant focus of inquiry but is not familiar with
Foucault's writing. It makes no assumptions of prior acquaintance
with Foucault's work and offers a brief overview of the signiflcance and
implications of Foucault's Corpus.
Readers who have a general familiarity with Foucault's work may well
wish to proceed directly to Part Two which provides a sustained
exposition of the dispersed treatment of law in his texts; this forms
Chapter 2. It should be noted that the absence of a systematic treatment
of law in Foucault's writings requires us to impose a thematic ordering
to the available material. We attempt to remain cise to a chronological treatment of the relevant texts but there are occasional departures,
for example where he returns in later works to repeat or modify earlier
streams. We make no attempt to second-guess how Foucault might have
organised a more sustained engagement with law. Part Two does not
confine itself to exposition alone. Chapter 3 comprises a critical
commentary and evaluation of Foucault's treatment of legal themes.
We thereby maintain a clear distinction between exposition and
commentary.
In Part Three we present our new framework for the sociology of law.
This part of the book is organised around the theme that law can and
should be treated as a form of govemance. In Chapter 4 we define
govemance and elabrate this concept by presenting four principies
of govemance. In Chapter 5 we extend this discussion into the realm
of law by making use of our four principies to address law. In this way
we outline the content of our new sociology of law as govemance,
Chapter 6 focuses on method; here we detail the mies we believe the
sociology of law as govemance should follow. Chapter 7 provides a
detailed example of the sociology of law as govemance at work; here
we outline an approach to the operation of policing.

Part One
Michel Foucault: An Introduction

An Introduction to Foucault

Meeting Foucault: some cautionary comments


Foucault's writing on law requires some introduction to the body of
his work for those not familiar with his writings. What follows seeks
to make Foucault accessible and is largely concerned to give an
exposition of those parts of his work which are relevant for the
subsequent examination of his remarks on law. We intentionally
avoid entering into any extended discussion or criticism of the
generality of Foucault's views. We confine our discussion to issues which
are pertinent to our subsequent treatment of Foucault on law. Before
embarking on an exposition of Foucault's general views it is necessary
to note a number of very real difficulties for any introductory overview
of his work. There are several reasons why his work does not readily
lend itself to easy encapsulation or condensation. We can start by identifying some of these constraints. First, Foucault consciously avoids
treating his work as a comprehensive and integrated package. He
always insists on the provisional nature of his writings and generally
resists the temptation to provide synthesising statements.1
His work exhibits a complex self-scrutiny; he persistently revises and
reworks a set of themes which emerges and re-emerges throughout his
writings, without there ever being clear orunambiguousbreaks. This
feature is compounded by the fact that Foucault espouses a thoroughgoing suspicion about the possibility of providing guarantees as to the
objectivity of knowledge. He does not elabrate a general theoretical
perspective or pretend that his concepts are exact or precise. There is
no single starting point or grounding of Foucault's thought; it can be
approachedfrom a number of different perspectives. One particularly
important consequence is that there is no 'real Foucault' who can be
summoned. Rather, we arge that it is a useful strategy to insist that
there are many 'Foucaults' who coexist and interact with one another.2
No amount of synthesis can yield a unitary body of knowledge let alone
a single theory.
A second difficulty is that it is not easy to place Foucault's thought
in regard to other familiar intellectual figures. He deliberately avoids
situating his work in relationship to established intellectual landmarks.
Both in his historical investigations and in his theoretical interventions
3

Foucault and Law

he often, but not always, refuses to debate directly with the existing
body of scholarship. He generally avoids, for reasons we make clear,
the conventional strategy of scholarly writing, namely, to engage in
direct debate with those who have previously worked on the field of
inquiry before striking out to offer his own interpretation.
It is perhaps even more signiflcant that he avoids making use of
concepts used by others. Sometimes this is because he wants to distance
himself from the associated body of ideas which have developed
around them. This is especially apparent with respect to his relationship to Marxism. It is not that Foucault thinks, for example, that class
is an unimportant feature of social structures. Yet, by and large, he avoids .
analysis in terms of class in order to escape the view that classes are preconstituted social agents with already formed interests and ideologies.
This tendency to steer clear of existing intellectual markers and their
authors makes the task of situating Foucault in relation to key figures
like Marx and Weber fraught with controversy.
Foucault's writings are often 'difflcult', particularly on flrstencounter.
It is important to grasp why a certain degree of difflculty and obscurantism is built into his projects. He is consciously concerned to clear
the ground of conventional and taken-for-granted questions and
approaches in order to explore problems in new and different ways.
This rejection of conventional wisdom is apparent in many of his
studies. Take the question of the invention of prisons - it has been
around as a problem for a long time now. The conventional story with
which we are familiar runs something along the following lines:
premodern societies used to torture the bodies and cut off the heads
of their miscreants until gradually, through a series of imperceptible
measures of reform, punishment became less physical, less directed at
the body of the offender, and locking up offenders became the most
widespread form of punishment. But why? Well, the conventional story
runs, it is because people gradually became more civilised and as a result,
uneven and complex though the changes were, prisons replaced the
gallows. In similar vein we stopped locking up the insane in asylums
and began forms of treatment in institutions which exhibited features
of both hospitals and prisons. Foucault's work challenges such accounts.
Foucault insists that it is necessary to break with the natural or
common-sense reality of the many topics he studies. It is not so much
that he denies the existence of insanity or illness, but that he challenges
the taken-for-granted self-evidence of madness, sexuality, etc. Thus, in
his history of sexuality his starting point is to deny the familiar story
that once upon a time sexual life was natural and spontaneous but
gradually became subject to various forms of repression whether of guiltridden Christianity or of the secular moralism captured by the label
'Victorian'. According to the radical versin of this story associated with
the counter-culture of the 1960s, the time has now come to liberate

An Introduction to Foucault

ourselves from the repression of sexuality. Foucault rejects what he calis


this 'repressive hypothesis'. Foucault himself, it should be noted,
sometimes comes cise to endorsing radical liberationist views; for
example, he comes cise to endorsing abolitionist views on prisons and
he also comes cise to endorsing the view that individuis should be
entitled or even encouraged to explore their sexuality to 'the limit'.
A final difficulty surrounding Foucault's work should be mentioned.
It does not flt comfortably into any ready-made discipline. His writing
straddles the conventional boundaries of philosophy, history and
sociology. Frequently commentators with a strong and protective
sense of their own disciplinary specialisms resist and strongly denounce
Foucault for transgressing their conception of how their discipline
should be practised: philosophers suggestthathe lacks rigour; historians
find him cavalier in his treatment of empirical evidence; sociologists
bemoan his lack of precisin in defining his concepts and stating his
hypotheses. It's not so much that these objections are wrong, but
rather that Foucault is self-consciously trying to break down artificial
disciplinary boundaries. Such boundaries have their own specific
histories; they are not natural or inevitable. Foucault's writings can be
read in different ways; he can be read as philosopher, historian or sociologist, but he can also be read charitably, that is with an eye open for
what he reveis precisely because he does not allow himself to be
bound by the conventional compartments into which knowledge is
bracketed. This is how we read him.

Foucault's themes and projects


Now that some of the difficulties in coming to grips with Foucault's
writings3 have been considered, and recalling that we think it sensible
to recognise that there are mltiple Foucaults, we start by identifying
one core theme that runs through his work. Then we introduce a set
of major interconnected themes within his writing that are relevant
to our subsequent discussion of law. There are numerous commentaries
on Foucault that are organised around the progression in his thought
and that explore the sequence of the projects on which he writes.4 A
serviceable approach would be to start with his work on madness and
the asylum, which takes in his long engagement with the history of
the social, psychological and human sciences. Such an account would
then move to his work on the institutions of the hospital and the prison
and then to the large and uncompleted project on the history of
sexuality. The approach we adopt differs. We identify those themes
which prepare the way for the engagement with Foucault's discussion
of law and related matters. We do not claim that this is preferable to
the more closely textual method of treatment. It does, however, allow
us to approach our main topic more directly, even though it runs the

Foucault and Law

risk of imposing an unjustiflable unity on the diverse range of Foucault's


intellectual production. We take this risk. The best that can be done
is to remind the reader of our earlier insistence that Foucault's style
involves the deliberate avoidance of anypretence to provide a systematic
and integrated body of knowledge or theory.

'Conditions of possibility'
If there is one theme which approaches the status of being central to
Foucault's work it is that he is concerned to trace the 'conditions of pos
sibility' of the forms of social knowledge and practices which form the
immediate subject matter of his inquines.5 As with so much else in
Foucault it is as well to approach this topic by inquiring what it is that
he is seeking to avoid. The conventional approach of the social sciences
is to pursue a causal line of inquiry; to ask what is the cause of the shift
or change which stimulates the investigation. Such a causal approach
might ask: what caused the shift from the punishment of the body to
the imprisonment of the offender? What caused human sexuality
first to become the subject of medical intervention and later to come
under the sway of the psychological sciences?
Foucault rejects the preoccupation with causes. His rejection is
grounded in the tendency of such lines of inquiry to presume that social
life is subject to linear and evolutionary change; that the direction of
change can be understood as working towards some goal which may
at the time have been only dimly perceived by participants but which
was nevertheless implicit in the succession of stages that history
reveis. The questfor causes tends to introduce assumptions aboutthe
role of human intentions, that outcomes are the result of human
desires and plans. Foucault thinks that to speak of causes brings with
it assumptions that are best avoided.
Foucault's alternative focus on 'conditions of possibility' is selfconsciously more modest. It refuses any assumptions about the direction
of social change or the role of human plans or intentions. Instead it
asks: what combination of circumstances in dispersed and seemingly
unconnected fields of social activity combines in such a way as to give
rise to some outcome? The kind of inquiry he recommends - genealogical inquiry - manifests a general commitment to the specificity or
uniqueness of historical phenomena; it is for this reason that he insists
on the 'event'. We will return to this topic below in considering his
views on the methods to be pursued in historical inquiries. Foucault's
quest for 'conditions of possibility' is closely related to his refusal of
the label 'structuralist' which has so often been used to describe his intel
lectual position. The grounds for his resistance stem from his belief that
structuralism involves the idea that structures provide the conditions
of their own existence, they provide what is necessary for their own

An Introduction to Foucault

continuation or reproduction. In opposition to this view he is at pains


to insist that 'conditions of possibility' are never guaranteed; rather
accident and chance play a decisive role. Consider the example
provided by modern Darwinism. Writers like Richard Dawkins, in
arguing against creationism, concede that the conditions under which
life can appear are unique and statistically rare, and that given the
enormous time periods of evolutionary history these conditions give
rise to the speciflc combination of circumstances in which unique events
occur (Dawkins 1985). In brief, the quest for the conditions of possi
bility exemplifies a commitment to an insistence upon historical
specificity.

Discourse, discursive formation and episteme


Foucault's concern with historical specificity is apparent in his concern
to trace the emergence of 'discourses'; how did it come about that some
particular way of organising thinking, talking and doing about some
selected topic took the form and content that it did?
The use of the term 'discourse' in recent social theory is so pervasive
that it is worthwhile discussing this concept and its popularity. In one
usage ittestifies to the pervasive impact in twentieth-century thought
of the 'linguistic turn' which underlies the importance of communication as a distinctive characteristic of social life. At the root of this usage
is the basic idea that language does not simply ame or label some
extemal autonomous reality except in limited cases such as when I point
my finger and say 'chicken'. Most language does more than merely
ame, such that it is more than a system of direct reference to an
extemal reality. This line of thought does not deny that there is an
extemal reality, but it makes the important point that it is mediated
through language. Crucially, Foucault adds institutional practices to
this understanding of discourse. The social world is experienced
through language and through the ways in which people label and valu
the context or environment in which lives are lived. Language plays
a major part in constituting social subjects, the subjectivities and
identities of persons, their relations and the field in which they exist,
but only within a context of institutional practices. Thus to be a
woman, or a man, or a parent, etc. is not just a biological label, but is
encrusted with all the complex things that it means to be a woman,
a man, or a parent in a particular culture at some particular point in
time. This reading of the concept 'discourse' encourages questions such
as: how did it happen that some particular way of thinking, speaking
and doing came to prominence at a particular time? Why this way of
thinking, speaking and doing rather than another? Discourse emphasises
the processes that produce the kinds of people, with characteristic ways
of thinking and feeling and doing, that live lives in speciflc contexts.

Foucault and Law

Discourse provides a means of designating the different forms of communication, but also of reminding us of the institutional, cultural or
constitutive place of language. The term reminds us that words work
for us because they are part of some wider phenomenon. While the
more important forms of discourse are speech or writing (texts),
discourse can also be non-verbal, physical acts (shaking hands) or
visual symbols (the genres of film that allow us to distinguish cartoons
from westerns). Discourse refers to elements which make up if not
always a coherent totality at least a wider frame of reference. Thus a
simple social practce such as entering a church where men take off their
hats and women keep them on is part of a discourse which we can
understand and make sense of involving elements about a sexual
divisin and features of theology; discourse is institutional doing and
the language it entails. Discourses put in place a set of linked signs. What
the concept captures is that people live and experience within discourse
in the sense that discourses impose frameworks which structure what
can be experienced or the meaningthat experience can encompass, and
thereby influencewhat can be said, thought and done. Each discourse
allows certain things to be said, thought and done and impedes or
prevents other things from being said, thought and done.
On the basis of this very general introduction to discourse we can
now turn our attention to the important directions in which Foucault
develops discourse theory. One of his concerns is to ask the question:
how do speciflc forms of knowledge and theory become possible (OoT
1970: xxi)? Much of his attention is directedtowards the formation of
a series of specialised intellectual discourses. For example, in The Order
o f Things his attention is focused on biology, linguistics and economics,
while in TheBirth ofth e Clinic (BC 1973) his focus is on the transformations in medical discourse. However, he is not only concerned
with such organised or professional discourses. In Madness and Civilization (M+C 1965), while paying attention to medical and psychiatric
discourses, his emphasis is on those discourses that grapple with the
relationship between madness and reason. Again, in The History o f
Sexuality (HoS 1978) he interweaves detailed consideration of theological
and medical discourses of sexuality with a broader concern with the
role of sexual discourses in everyday life. It is possible to identify a
number of features of his treatment of discourse.
Discourses have real effects; they are not just the way that social issues
get talked and thought about. They structure the possibility of what
gets included and excluded and of what gets done or remains undone.
Foucault identifles a distinctive feature of the discourses on sex - that
it 'never ceased to hide the thing it was speakingabout' (HoS 1978: 53).
In its most obvious sense discourse authorises some to speak, some views
to be taken seriously, while others are marginalised, derided, excluded

An Introduction to Foucault

and even prohibited. Discourses impose themselves upon social life,


indeed they produce what it is possible to think, speak and do.
Foucault is concerned to stress the dispersin and the unruliness of
discourses; they proliferate, clash, compete and collide.
Discourses must be treated as discontinuous practices, which cross
each other, are sometimes juxtaposed with one another, but can just
as well exelude or be aware of each other. (Is it Useless to Revolt?
1981: 67)
It is important to stress that discourse is not simply that which masks
or hides; in a sense it is more important than that because it sets up
what it is that is argued over and fought about, 'discourse is the power
which is to be seized' (Is it Useless toRevolt? 1981: 52-3).
Foucault introduces two additional concepts which desgnate pattems
of stability within discourses: 'discursive formation' and 'episteme'.
Discursive formation refers to a system of more or less stable elements
of discourse that are linked or associated. As a flrst approximation a
scientific theory, a political rhetoric or a theological position are
examples. The originality of Foucault's conception is that it involves
more than the aggregation of discourses into some relatively persistent
fleld. He provides two advances over the use so far made of the concept
of discursive formation. First, he insists that the system of discursive
statements which constitute a formation are not merely a unity but also
enshrine a 'dispersar (AoK 1972: 38). Second, the concept focuses
attention on its conditions of existence, the conditions that make
that formation possible. He shifts attention away from the infernal
dynamics of the constituent elements employed (signs, signiflers and
signifled). His account of discursive formations thus breaks with the
infernal preoccupations of linguistics in order to focus upon the
extemal or social conditions within which discourses are formed and
transformed.
The second related concept, 'episteme', has passed into English
usage without translation. Episteme refers to historically enduring
discursive regularities, the ordering, often unconscious, that gives rise
to distinctive forms of thought which underlie the intellectual disci
plines. The epistemes provide 'grids' for perception, that is, impose a
framework of categories and elassifleations within which thought, communication and action can occur.
Foucault produces somegreatbeginnings. Inthe Order ofThings (OoT
1970) he traces genesis of work to a short story by Borges in which he
quotes an imaginary Chnese encyclopaedia which classifles animals
as follows:

10

Foucault and Law

animals are divided into: (a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed,
(c) tame, (d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h)
included in the present classiflcation, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable,
(k) drawn with a very flne camel-hair brush, (1) et cetera, (m) having
just broken the water pitcher, (n) that look from a long way off like
flies. (OoT 1970: xv)
Foucault makes us aware of the centrality of classiflcation and ordering
of knowledge by exposing us to a classificatory 'grid' which through
the prevailing western episteme is incoherent or even crazy. The
epistemes refer to these broad constellations or pattems of thought. He
identifies a number of historical shifts or displacements which yield
a broad periodisation of western history; successive epistemes are
incommensurate and thus mark shifts or ruptures in the organisation
of human knowledge. He speaks of two great discontinuities in the
episteme of western culture: the first brings about the 'Classical Age'
(mid seventeenth century) and the second the 'Modem Age' (beginning
of the nineteenth century), 'the threshold of modernity' (OoT 1970:
xxiv). We see in Part Two that this periodisation into classical and
modern plays an important part in his writing on law.
It should be noted that while Foucault emphasises the importance
of discourses he avoids suggesting that the social is coextensive with
discourses. He explicitly recognises the existence of a realm of nondiscursive elements.
what I cali an apparatus is a much more general case of the episteme-,
or rather, that the episteme is a specifically discursive apparatus,
whereas the apparatus in its general form is both discursive and nondiscursive. (P/K 1980: 196-7)
It remains unclear exactly what we are expected to understand the nondiscursive elements to be. When he uses the term he refers to
'institution' and to 'apparatus'; the latter he views as an ensemble of
discourses, institutions, laws, administrative measures, scientific
statements, philanthropic initiatives, etc. He distances himself from his
earlier image of the episteme as more or less unitary and coherent
frameworks of ideas (OoT 1970: 168).
We suggest that the most fruitful way to understand the relationship
between the discursive and the non-discursive is to see Foucault's
concern as being with the way in which specific discourses (e.g.
medical, legal) get articulated with other social practices external to
them. In simple terms, his concern is with the relationship between
ideas and practices.

A n Introduction to Foucault

11

Truth and knowledge


Discourses generate truths, or to be more precise truth-claims. Truth
is produced; but it is not produced dispassionately or impartially, it is
produced with a passion, with what Foucault calis a 'will to truth' or
a 'will to knowledge' and gives rise to regimes of truth.
Each society has its regime of truth, its 'general politics' of truth: that
is, the type of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true;
the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish
true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned;
the techniques and procedures accorded valu in the acquisition of
truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts
as true. (P/K 1980: 131)
This conception of truth intentionally pits itself against the views
of truth that have been prevalent since the Enlightenment whereby
truth is neutral, revealing itself only when it is separated from power,
in the clear light of day under the scrutiny of scrupulous inquiry. For
Foucault, truth is not counterposed to falsity or error, but rather
regimes of truth lay down what is true and what is false. Truth operates
through the exclusin, marginalisation and even prohibition of other
competing truths; indeed it is itself a 'prodigious machinery designed
to exelude' (OoD 1981: 55). Truth is not separated from power, rather
it is one of the most important vehicles and expressions of power; power
is exercised through the production and dissemination of truth.
This view of truth carries with it a risk, the risk of a slide into
relativism where everything (and anything) is truth and only power
is the arbiter between competing regimes of truth. Foucault denies the
charge of relativism. He does so by denying that anything could be true.
Here, as in many other places, he shows the influence of Nietzsche, in
not pulling back from a profound distrust of all discourses of 'truth'
and 'reason'. He certainly holds that the metaphysical quest for truth
is doomed, there are no final causes or ultmate truths. Once such quests
are abandoned, Foucault recommends that we focus our energies on
the modest and realisable task of identifying techniques of truth and
power. How is truth produced? What are the conditions of its
production? The kind of answer he provides is illustrated by his
account of the transformation of medical knowledge and practice; it
was the emergence of a regularised and systematic 'clinical medicine'
practised within the hospital that laid the foundation for modern
medical knowledge. Note that it is not only new medical discourses that
are in volved, but it is the combination of new discourses, new practices
and new institutions which account for the shifts in medical knowledge.
More radical and more disturbing implications arise from Foucault's
exploration of the history of sexuality. His target, in The History o f

12

Foucault and Law

Sexuality, is the optimism that gained momentum during the twentieth


century which argued that once the guilt and repression which had
scarred the discourses on sexuality of the nineteenth century, encapsulated in the term 'Victorian', were displaced, progress towards sexual
honesty and liberation could be ensured. Foucault challenges this
view which he calis the 'repressive hypothesis'. He does not simply
reverse the optimism of the 'sexual revolution' of the 1960s, or does
he join hands with the 'new puritanism' of radical feminism. In
important respects his views are more unsettling. The scenario he
paints is one of a succession of discourses on sexuality which all aspire
to reveal 'the truth of sex', through which we can hope to discover and
even master our sexualities and eventually be able to 'tell the truth of
sex' (HoS 1978: 57).
Yet there is a disturbing ambiguity in his conclusions. On the one
hand he parodies the cults he associates with the 'Califomian cult of
the self' - through the interrogation of our sexuality we may hope to
discover our true selves, to decipher the truth of self and sex through
sexual self-inspection and psychotherapy (GE 1984: 362). Yet on the
other hand he was himself committed to the exploration of the 'limitexperience' of our sexuality (Remarks on Marx 1991: 29).
For present purposes we can suspend the really big questions about
the possibility of truth; in the mean time we can draw upon Foucault's
impulse towards inquiries which interrgate the conditions of possi
bility of speciflc historical truths. What we need to alert ourselves to
is that law is one of the more voluble discourses which claims not only
to reveal the truth but to authorise and conscrate it. The truth of law
is not to be taken for granted but seen as a problem to be investigated:
'it is as if even the word of the law could no longer be authorised, in
our society, except by a discourse of truth' (OoD 1981: 55).

Knowledge and power


The linkage between knowledge and power is probably the best-known
feature of Foucault's work. The direct linkage, power-knowledge, in a
sense says it all.
We should admit ... that power produces knowledge (and not
simply by encouraging it because it serves power or by applying it
because it is useful); that power and knowledge directly imply one
another; that there is no power relation without the correlative
constitution of a field of knowledge, or any knowledge that does
not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations...
the subject who knows, the objects to be known and the modalities
of knowledge must be regarded as so many effects of these funda
mental implications of power/knowledge and their historical
transformations. (D&P 1977: 27-8)

An Introduction to Foucault

13

In order to think through the implications of the concept of 'powerknowledge' it is necessary to put aside what remains the commonplace
view, but one which was crucial to Enlightenment thought, that
knowledge can only flourish where power is absent, excluded or
suspended. Does this mean that we should challenge the idea at the
heart of today's human rights discourse, namely, that dictatorships are
bad because, among other things, they distort or suppress knowledge?
Foucault does not say that the link between power and knowledge is
ethically unimportant; rather he insists that it is inescapable. Henee
his target is the commonplace assumption in the liberal democracies
that all is well whenever and wherever knowledge can flourish independently of power. To understand the formation of any body of
knowledge always involves the consideration of the power dimensions
within which the knowledge is produced. But this is not to adopt the
naive moralism that knowledge is bad, polluted or corrupted by virtue
of its production within relations of power and within institutions. Thus
he speaks of the prison becoming a 'permanent observatory' and functioning as an 'apparatus of knowledge' directed towards the production
of 'docile and useful bodies' (D&P 1977: 136-8); there is an important
sense in which the modern prison is more cruel than the od physical
cruelties of torture since disciplines impinge on the soul, will or personality of the prisoner.
Once we have appreciated the ideas Foucault invites us to renounce,
or at least to suspend, we can then follow his application of the powerknowledge couplet. His point is simple but important: knowledge is a
major resource of power. He does not mean that we should simply
search out the social interests atplay within a power relation, but makes
a more complex point that experience always involves some play of
power/knowledge; for example, the discourses on human sexuality
involve a linkage of power, knowledge and pleasure (HoS 1978: 11).
He direets our inquiries towards the 'will to knowledge' that serves as
both the support and the instrument of power. The result of this line
of thought is to direct attention toward the sites of production of
knowledge, the leamed disciplines and the professions, in order to
unearth their complicity in power relations. Just as discourses exelude
or marginalise some other discourses while empowering others, so sites
of knowledge also subordnate other knowledge. Politically this leads
him to insistthat we attend to or listen to these altemative knowledges.
For example, the knowledge produced by the modern medical
profession has secured the medicalisation of pregnaney as an illness,
as a proper place in which to practise medical technologies. In so
doing the knowledge associated with the long-standing traditions of
midwifery has been marginalised and even criminalised, yet today in
many countries, midwives are not merely resisting but asserting their
legitimacy. It is, however, interestingto note that the general dominance

14

Foucault and Law

of the medical model is such that in order to take a recognised place


midwifery is having to organise itself as a form of professionalised
knowledge and practice.
These concems give a strongly historical inflection to Foucault's investigations of power-knowledge. These are undertaken in a way which
tries to ensure that he is not undertaking a 'history of ideas'. His
objection to this way of proceeding is that such an approach always
runs the risk of conceiving of 'ideas' as free-floating entities which insert
themselves into historical contexts. By contrast, Foucault focuses
attention on the way in which the discourses within which knowledge
is located are part of the practical tactics and techniques of power
relations. For example, in his history of sexuality he identifies four significant strategic shifts since the eighteenth century involving 'speciflc
mechanisms of knowledge and power centering on sex' (HoS 1978:103).
There was first the hysterisation of women's bodies captured in the
image of the 'nervous woman'. Then there was a focus on the sexuality
of children manifest in the onslaught on masturbation. This was
followed by a mobilisation of the 'responsibilities' of married couples
to raise families using fiscal tactics to induce an increase in the birth
rate. The final stage he identifies with psychiatrisation of perverse
pleasures centred on discourses of 'perversions'.
These considerations on the relation between power and knowledge
are summed up in the following:
it is in discourse that power and knowledge are joined together...
we must not imagine a world of discourse divided between the
accepted discourse and excluded discourse, or between the dominant
discourse and the dominated one; but as a multiplicity of discursive
elements that can come into play in various strategies... discourse
can be both an instrument and an effect of power ... Discourse
transmits and produces power; it reinforces it, but also undermines
and exposes it, renders it fragile and makes it possible to thwart it.
(HoS 1978: 101)

Power
Foucault proposes a radically new account of power. Perhaps the best
way to explore his account of power is to focus on the view of power
that he is trying to escape. He wants to get away from the simple
equation of power with repression. He sees this as particularly char
acteristic of the Marxist tradition. However, one can make his point
even more strongly by drawing attention to the pervasiveness of the
negative, normative view that 'power is bad'. It is of the greatest
importance to stress that he does not try to reverse this commonsense
view in order to say 'power is good'. Rather he encourages us to focus
on a more analytical and even descriptive approach; we should start

An Introduction to Foucault

15

by checking out what forms o f power are at work in those social


situations we seek to understand. It also follows that he rejects a 'zerosum' view of power by which power on one side always means the other
side lacks power or is powerless. Indeed he is concerned to reject the
very idea that power is something that is possessed, that some sorts of
agents 'hold' power and that others lack it. We should view power as
present in all forms of social relations, as something that is 'at work'
in every situation; for Foucault power is everywhere. This helps us to
avoid one of the least helpful views that stems from the 'power is bad'
assumption, namely, that the ideal or goal should be to achieve a
situation in which power is absent or abolished. Quite simply, there
can never be a power vacuum or a no-power situation or relationship.
It is also important to insist that Foucault is not advocating a view
that we should be, or even that it is possible to be, neutral about
power. This is very clear from the fact that he contines to stress that
the play of power produces systematic power relations, that there are
rulers and ruled, dominators and dominated. He is, however, anxious
to insist that we should not start out from simple polarities of power
(capitalists versus workers, men versus women, etc.). One way of
unpacking what he says (although he never puts it in quite this way)
is that our analysis should proceed through two stages: first, identify
the powers at work and, second, evalate the results of the play of these
powers by making judgements about whether the cumulative effects
give rise to domination or subordination. The need to suspend the
judgement on power is well illustrated by contemporary controversies
over 'body politics'. How should we assess preoccupation with diet and
exercise? Do these practices produce increased autonomy and capacity
for self-determination? Or are they evidence of an insidious patriarchal
power? The political conclusin is controversial; power, in producing
the people that we are, is both productive and dominating.
Looked at in terms of this two-stage approach we can see a certain
unevenness in Foucault's contribution. He offers fertile and original
insights into the mechanics, tactics and techniques of the dispersed
forms of power. He is, however, less than clear about what is involved
in making the more normative judgements about what constitutes
domination and how we distinguish between dominators and the
dominated; for example, if women put themselves at risk undergoing
cosmetic surgery are they exercising their autonomy or are they the
victims of patriarchal power? He simply has little to say on such
questions.
This substantive account of power produces a theory of productive
power:
We must cease once and for all to describe the effects of power in
negative terms: it 'exeludes', it 'represses', it 'censors', it 'abstraets',

16

Foucault and Law

it 'masks', it 'conceals'. In fact power produces; it produces reality;


it produces domains of objects and rituals of truth. The individual
and the knowledge that may be gained of him belong to this
production. (D&P 1977: 194)
One important consequence of his rejection of a negative or repressive
view of power is that he insists on the importance of what we may cali
the 'small powers', what he calis the 'micro-physics of power' (D&P
1977: 12; HoS 1978: 26). These involve the application of detailed
techniques for the training of the body by making use of 'micropenalties', minor punishments such as deprivation of privileges. It is
not that he thinks that 'big power' has disappeared. Rather he makes
a broad historical generalisation that in modernity 'small power', in
particular power located in sites away from the central locations of 'big
power' (e.g. the state or capital), has become a defining characteristic
of power.
Because he is interested in changing our agenda in discussions of
power he has a lot more to say about the 'little powers' than about the
'big powers'. One result is that he highlights the politics of everyday
life rather than the big institutional sites of power. For example,
Foucault has very little to say about economic power in general and
capitalism in particular. He does not talk much about capitalism
because to do so would be to take him back on to the terrain occupied
by Marxism. His concern to breaknew ground and to challenge the con
ventional wisdom of both the left and the right does result in certain
rather dramatic silences or absences in his work.
One further feature of Foucault's discussion of power requires
mention. While much of the thrust of his criticism of altemative conceptions of power is directed against Marxism he also directs his
criticism against liberal conceptions of power. His objection against
liberalism is that it overwhelmingly poses the question of power in teims
of a distinction between legitmate and illegitimate power. Liberalism
has increasingly been preoccupied with seeking to delineate the
conditions under which the application of state coercion can be
justified. This has been a standard preoccupation of liberal jurisprudence.
He makes the perceptive point that this construction of the problem
of power, one that he labels the 'juridico-discursive' conception of
power, has widespread ramifications. The dichotomous distinction
between legitmate and illegitimate finds echoes in other discourses;
for example, he notes that the discourses of sex are suffused with pre
occupation with the binary distinctions between licit/illicit,
permitted/forbidden, etc. Foucault's objection is that to organise
discussion of power in this way, through the classiflcation of its results,
deflects attention away from the techniques and tactics of power.

An Introduction to Foucault

17

Liberalism, like Marxism, is permeated by a negative conception of


power.
Foucault's conception of power carries with it the strong insistence
that power always involves and engenders 'resistance':
there are no relations of power without resistances; the latter are the
more real and effective because they are formed right at the point
where relations of power are exercised. (P/K 1980: 142)
Resistance is not external to power or merely a result of its application
(HoS 1978: 95); since power marginalises, silences and exeludes, the
marginalised, silenced and excluded are always present. One expression
of Foucault's political radicalism is contained in his cali that we listen
to the excluded voices of resistance. As a consequence of his emphasis
on local and dispersed power he conceives local resistance as its typical
form. In opposition to what he takes to be the Marxist exclusive preoccupation with the grand resistance of revolution, he asserts that
there is no single locus of great Refusal, no soul of revolt, source of
all rebellions, or pur law of the revolutionary. Instead there is a
plurality of resistances (HoS 1978: 95-6).
However, it should be noted that his attention to resistance is never
as developed or as full as his analysis of power. It remains a field of
potential study hardly tapped by Foucault himself. One theme of con
siderable potential should be noted. One way in which he brings to light
the coexistence of power and resistance is with respect to the intmate
relation of 'success' and 'failure'. He makes the enormously important
point that the success of the prison lies in its failures. The failure of
prison to reduce illegalities and actually to serve as a mechanism of their
amplification explains the unquenched enthusiasm for experimentation with the detailed forms of incarceration by governments and
experts. Yet this supreme failure is paradoxically its success in yielding
an ever-present mechanism of 'dividing practices', the shifng categories
that first classify the dangerous from the respectable, the mad from the
sane, the deserving from the undeserving (D&P 1977: 234-5, 264-5).
In Part Three we retum to this theme to insist that the interdependence
of success/failure is one of the most fertile sources of govemance.

The problem of State power


An important question is whether it is possible to retain Foucault's
emphasis on the productivity of power but still recognise the state and
the condensation of power relations that occurs around it and other
institutional complexes, such as banks and multinationals. This

18

Foucault and Law

problem is more than just a matter of achieving an even-handed


treatment of two different species of power. There exists a broad postFoucaultian consensus that any adequate social or political theory
has to take account of both 'big power' and 'little power'. The really
difficult issue is to find an adequate way of grasping their mutual
articulation and interaction. The weakness of Foucault's project is
that in putting 'little power' on to the agenda, he appears to ignore or
to understate the importance of the processes that aggregate or
condense power in centralised sites. This weakness not only manifests
itself in a descriptively inadequate theory but also impedes the
generation of adequate political strategy. As Poulantzas expresses it: 'one
can deduce from Foucault nothing more than a guerrilla war and
scattered acts of harassment of power' (Poulantzas 1978: 149).
It is far from clear whether Foucault himself recognises this problem.
It is possible to offer reasonable accounts for the view that he does
address this issue and also for the view that he never comes to grips
with it. Foucault's negative view of the significance of state power is
exemplified in the following formulation:
The idea that the state must, as the source or point of confluence of
power, be invoked to account for all the apparatuses in which power
is organised, does not seem to me very fruitful for history. (P/K
1980: 188)
The problem with this rhetoric is that there is, of course, no one who
arges that the state accounts for 'all' the manifestations of power.
Indeed one of the odd features of Foucault's critique of Marxism is the
claim that Marxism exhibits a narrowly state-centred view of power;
statism there is in Marx, but this provides no justiflcation for ignoring
the much more developed analysis that Marx provides of economic
power that is dramatically and revealingly absent from Foucault's
own work.
It is clear that Foucault focuses increasingly upon the need to
examine how different micro-powers are related, how they become
aligned and realigned, and sometimes he refers to such powers becoming
integrated into a global strategy of the domination of some class or
state.6 There is no doubt that he recognises the existence of major or
global dominations; for example, he suggests that micro-powers
form a general line of forc that traverses the local oppositions and
links them together... Major dominations are the hegemonic effects
that are sustained by all these confrontations. (HoS 1978: 94;
emphasis added)

An Introduction to Foucault

19

This view makes use of the metaphor of a 'diagram' or a 'vector' o f power


along the lines of a simple vector model as used in elementary
mechanics, in which a number of different forces act in such a way to
produce a resultant (or aggregate) forc acting in a direction different
from any of the originating forces.7 The great attraction of this model
for Foucault is that the forces/powers that act remain autonomous and
there is no implication of intentionality or purpose which underlies
or explains the direction in which the resultant force/power operates.
In the important essay 'The Subject and Power' he seems to recognise
that he has perhaps gone too far in stressing the diffusion of power:
what makes the domination of a group, a caste, or a class ... a
central phenomenon in the history of societies is that they manifest
in a massive and universalizing form, at the level ofthe whole social body,
the locking together of power relations with relations of strategy and
the results proceeding from their interaction. (S&P 1982: 226;
emphasis added)
Elsewhere he describes as a 'methodological precaution' the need to
conduct an ascending analysis of power, starting, that is, from its
infinitesimal mechanisms... and then see how these mechanisms
of power have been - and continu to be - invested, colonized,
utilized, involuted, transformed, displaced, extended, etc., by ever
more general mechanisms and by forms of global domination. (TL
1980: 99)
And in perhaps more cautious terms he arges that
one should not assume a massive and primal condition of
domination, a binary structure with 'dominators' on one side and
'dominated' on the other, but rather a multiform production of
relations of domination which are partially susceptible o f integration
into overall strategies. (P/K 1980: 142)
However, beyond this point he leaves us stranded. Having most
valuably stressed the importance of the dispersed powers and then
recognised that these can and do become aggregated into 'overall
strategies' and'global domination' he does offer one concrete example:
around 1830 the industrial workers in the northern French town of
Mulhouse were subjected to a coherent strategy of domination through
dispersed exercises of power in their work, housing, consumption,
education, etc. He concedes that this combination of moralising
practices effected by a range of different agencies installed the
domination of the bourgeoisie, but rejects the idea that the bour-

20

Foucault and Law

geoisie was a unitary self-conscious subject at work to produce this


domination.
In the end what Foucault does is to leave open the question: if
there is no unitary class that plans its strategy of domination, how is
this result or effect produced? This rather important issue is left unaddressed. It is not that we suggest that there is a readily available
solution, but we do suggest it is a question that must be posed. Furthermore it is one that has a bearing on law for it is frequently through
the mechanism of legislation that such strategies become visible.

Discipline
The general shift of attention towards 'small power' gives rise to one
of the most distinctive of Foucault's preoccupations, that of discipline.
His treatment of this key concept has both analytical and historical
dimensions. Analytically it identifies the existence of a whole complex
of techniques of power that do not rely on forc and coercion. Historically it generates his key thesis that discipline becomes the distinctive
form of modern power. He focuses on the rise in the eighteenth
century of new ways of controlling and training people, what he calis
'technologies of the body'. He gives the example of military training
the aim of which was to produce 'docile bodies' by means of a 'new
micro-physics of power' through the repetition of detailed tasks
epitomised by marching drill (D&P 1977:139). Perhaps the most dis
tinctive embodiment of 'discipline' to which Foucaultdraws attention
is the technique of 'surveillance'; more generally he draws attention
to the methods of observation, recording and training. The practices
that had long been enshrined in monasteries, armies and workshops
became generalised and came to permeate everyday social life.
The disciplines are characterised by these tiny, everyday, physical
mechanisms, by systems of micro-power.
The chief function of disciplinary power is to 'train' ... Discipline
'makes' individuis; it is the speciflc technique of a power that
regards individuis both as objects and as instruments of its exercise
... It is not a triumphant power ... it is a modest, suspicious power.
(D&P 1977: 170)
The formation of the insidious leniencies, unavowable petty cruelties,
small acts of cunning, calculated methods, techniques, 'sciences' that
permit the fabrication of the disciplined individual. (D&P 1977:
308)
These contrast sharply with the 'majestic rituals of sovereignty or the
great apparatuses of the state'.

An Introduction to Foucault

21

Disciplinary power exhibits three general characteristics. The first of


these is hierarchical observation (sergeant over recruits, teachers over
pupils). Foucault extrapolates from his work on the prison in which
'surveillance' provides him with the key to the disciplinary regime of
incarceration. We may note the link between surveillance in Discipline
and Punish and 'the gaze' in The Birth ofthe Clinic. Discipline requires
detailed observation and the individuation of its 'targets' (prisoners,
patients, pupils, etc.). The cumulative observation of large numbers of
targets provided an impulse towards the keeping of records, the writing
of reports, and monitoring and inspection, all of which came to form
important techniques of government in the modern world.
Second, discipline operates through 'norms', normalising judgements
(norms are specified which define the attributes of 'good soldiers' or
'obedient children'). The norms are directed against a wide range of
behaviour involving faults, such as lateness, untidiness, uncleanliness, disobedience, but they are also directed against faults in attitude
such as insolence, disobedience, intransigence, lack of loyalty or team
spirit. Norms specify the goals to which those subjected to discipline
must strive to achieve -standards of tidiness, punctuality, etc. Foucault
refers to these faults as 'offences' but this term rather misses the point
he wants to make - in English at least. It is too cise to the terms of
criminal law. 'Fault' is to be preferred because it brings out the role of
broad normative standards. Characteristic of disciplinary techniques
are 'exercises' and other forms of the repetition of tasks. It is training
which lies at the heart of the disciplines; this feature is perhaps best
exemplifled in the techniques of nineteenth-century schooling with
the emphasis on the repetition of routinised tasks epitomised in the
learning of multiplication tables by rote. Cumulatively training uses
the 'examination' or other form of test as one of its evaluative
techniques.
Third, discipline deploys not so much punishment but a mix of
micro-penalties and rewards. 'At the heart of all disciplinary systems
functions a small penal mechanism' (D&P 1977: 177), an 'infra' or
'micro-penality' that takes possession of ever-widening fields of
behaviour. The difference between disciplinary faults and criminal
offences is marked by the typical forms of punishment. Characteristically, the repetition of training assignments forms the core of
punishment ('Write outyour tables again'). The micro-penalties also
deploy forms of minor individualising humiliation ('Stand in the
comer', 'Wear the dunce's cap', etc.). They escalate through graduated
stages from loss of minor privileges ('No play un til you've flnished your
lessons') to sanctions that mimic criminal penalties (fines for lateness
in the factory, and 'minor' beatings in schools). The disciplinary
sanctions are significantly linked with the use of 'rewards' (stars,
grades, prizes, badges, privileges, etc.).

22

Foucault and Law

The advance of disciplinary techniques is manifest in the rise of


'regulation' as a distinctive technique of govemment. It should be noted
that although Foucault occasionally uses the term 'regulation', it is not
treated in any systematic way such as to become a concept of any
importan ce in his work.8 However, the term 'regulation' is important
because it sets up a contrast with 'law'; if law is the stipulation of general
rules then regulation is more task oriented and less prohibitive, in that
it is employed to define detailed goals and targets for training and other
forms of intervention directed at the behaviour of individuis.
Regulation characteristically involves techniques of detail. In the light
of these considerations we make more use of the term 'regulation' than
does Foucault himself; we think this usage is entirely consistent with
the spirit of his work

The problem of disciplinary society


Some care is necessary with regard to the historical thesis which is
undoubtedly present in Foucault, namely, that the accumulative effects
of the diffusion of disciplinary mechanisms led to the emergence of a
distinctive 'disciplinary society. His contention is contained in his claim
that the disciplines supplant and even replace law as a primary mode
of govemment. Such a thesis clearly has important implications for our
study of law. We retum for a more detailed discussion of these issues
in Part Two. For the time being it is sufficient to note that the
contention that discipline supplants law lies atthe heart of our criticism
that Foucault tends to expel law from any major role in modern forms
of govemment. What separates Foucault's position from ours is that
he counterposes law to regulation, while we see discipline and law supplementing each other and forming distinctive and pervasive forms of
regulation at the very heart of modem govemment.
However, Foucault is somewhat ambivalent in his formulations.
Sometimes he asserts a strong claim about the emergence of a new state
of 'disciplinary society and at other times he backs off from this view.
In describing the advent of the modem world he suggests that from
the eighteenth century the mechanisms of sovereignty were supplemented by 'the invention of a new mechanism of power'.
This new type of power, which can no longer be formulated in
terms of sovereignty, is, I believe, one of the great inventions of
bourgeois society ... This non-sovereign power, which lies outside
the form of sovereignty, is disciplinary power. (TL 1980: 105)
But at much the same time he explicitly denies that there was a shift
from the classical society (organised around sovereignty) to a disciplinary
society.

An Introduction to Foucault

23

We m u st... see things not in terms of the substitution for a society


of sovereignty by a disciplinary society and the subsequent replacement of a disciplinary society by a govemmental one; in reality we
have a triangle; sovereignty-discipline-govemment, which has as its
primary target the population and its essential mechanism apparatuses of security. (G 1979: 18-19)9
There is no easy way to resolve whether or not Foucault holds that
modemity is a disciplinary society. It is important to bear in mind that
he is attracted to broad developmental theses and yet, at the same time,
feels compelled to deny them because of his rejection of totalising the
oretical generalisations. Intemal tensin can be resolved by suggesting
that Foucault holds that 'disciplinary society' is a formula which draws
attention to the undeniable expansin of disciplinary power, but he
does not want to suggest that this resulted in the formation of some
systematically disciplined and ordered society.10

From discipline to self-discipline: from power to ethics


One of the most important implications of Foucault's concept of
discipline is that it pavs the way for a significant extensin of his
capacityto engage with the complex ways in which power is inscribed
in social life. Linguistically it is a small step from 'discipline' to 'selfdiscipline'. Two initial implications of this move should be noted: first,
that it is consistent with all his efforts to break with the identificatin
of power with repression and coercion; second, it marks another stage
in his break with the Marxist concept of ideology, or at least those
versions which emphasise ideology as deception or 'false-consdousness'.
One immediate qualification needs to be entered. The shift that
Foucault actually makes does not involve the term 'self-discipline'. He
never settles comfortably with any one concept, but rather makes use
of a variety of terms: conduct of the self, practices of the self, self-control,
techniques of the self, technologies of the self, techniques of selfmastery among others. All these terms are used as he comes to focus
his attention, in the second and third volumes of his history of
sexuality (HoS 1985a, b), on how the self constituted itself as a subject,
'the history of how an individual acts upon himself' (1988a: 19). He
is interested in the ethical problem central for men (and not women,
children and slaves) in Classical Greece of 'enkrateia', the project of selfmastery, for example, to be able to look at a beautiful girl or boy
without desire. Whereas today art refers overwhelmingly to objects, for
the Greeks the issue was to make one's life a work of art.
Self-discipline and the complex of practices, techniques and tech
nologies associated with it should not be thought of as a purely
historical set of questions. As always with Foucault the past and
'history of the present' are intimately linked. Today we place enormous

24

Foucault and Law

investment in the techniques of the self, whether concerned with


body-weight, personal appearance, fitness or all the other self-constructing or self-constituting activities. These practices should not be
thought of as simply self-directed or introspective; they bring into play
a whole series of 'specialists'. Not only are there an array of specialisms
based on the 'psych sciences' (Rose 1989), but as a recent Yellow Pages
advertisement tells us, everyone needs to have their own aerobics
instructor, their hairdresser, and their 'tae kwon do' coach.
Foucault's attention to the processes whereby people make themselves
involves more than a move from discipline to self-discipline. It provides
him with a way in which he can address the important ethical issues
involved in his own life. It also gives him a way of securing some
linkages between his historical and sociological concerns on the one
hand, and his ongoing engagement with those strands in philosophy
that require us to decide how we should make ourselves, on the other.
In some of his last writings and interviews he brings the strands of his
work together with the suggestion that what he has been on about all
the time is the interconnections between three primary issues: power,
truth and ethics. In different phases of his writing one or the other of
these elements comes to the fore, for example the period of Discipline
and Punish, the mid 1970s, is the period of 'power'. For present purposes
it should be emphasised that when we consider each and every form
of self-government all three elements are involved: first, the dimensin
of truth through which we constitute ourselves as subjects of knowledge;
second, the field of power through which we constitute ourselves as
subjects acting on others; and third, ethics through which we constitute
ourselves as moral agents (GE 1984: 351). Thus, relations of power exist
alongside the production of truth and, in turn, are linked to questions
about how we are to live.

Government and governmentality


The concepts 'government' and 'governmentality' are important and
original features of Foucault's thought. As he explains:
This word [government] must be allowed the very broad meaning
which it had in the sixteenth century. 'Government' did not refer
only to political structures or the management of states; rather it
designates the way in which the conduct of individuis or states might
be directed: the government of children, of souls, of communities,
of families, of the sick. It did not cover only the legitimately constituted forms of political or economic subjection, but also modes
of action, more or less considered, which were designed to act upon
the possibilities of action of other people. To govern, in this sense,
is to structure the possible field of action of others. (S&P 1982: 221)

An Introduction to Foucault

25

The focus on government as an intensely practical matter, 'how things


get done', is of great importance and it is this strand, more than any
other in Foucault's work, that this book sets out to develop and extend.
However, it should be noted that one important implication of
Foucault's conception of government is that it is consistent with his
downgrading of the importance of the state.
Maybe, after all, the State is no more than a composite reality and
a mythical abstraction whose importance is a lot more limited than
many of us think. Maybe what is really important for our modern
times ... is not so much the State-domination of society, but the 'governmentalisation' of the State. (G 1979: 20)
His refusal to accord great significance to the state is, in large part, a
reaction against the Marxist tradition which he believes places too much
significance on the state.
He puts forward the historical thesis that during the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries the practices of 'government', conceived in
this expanded sense, came to the fore; the traditional practices of
state sovereignty did not disappear, rather the new forms of governmental rationality became more important. One of his most important
illustrations is the way in which 'population' came to constitute a central
focus for a variety of projects of government; population not only
became the target of formal governments, but also of a variety of
other governing agencies. Medicine, religin, education and other
mechanisms became concerned with the number, health, education
and the productivity of the aggregated individuis and organisations
that made up a population.
This 'non-governmental' government of population is well illustrated
in Valerie Fildes's study of wet-nursing, the employment of women
other than the natural mother to breast-feed babies. In England in the
mid eighteenth century the trastees of the London Foundling Hospital
became concerned by the mortality rate of the increasing number of
abandoned children in their care. Not only did they collect detailed
statistics to compare the mortality rates of 'wet' versus 'dry' nursed babies
(using milk substitutes), but they found that wet-nursing, today
regarded as primitive, was in fact more efficient than dry-nursing.
What indicates an instance of the government of population is that
the hospital proceeded to lay down detailed regulations for the conduct
of the wet-nurses it employed; these rules focused in particular on their
sexual practices and consumption of alcohol, but also revealed a sense
of the importance of diet (Fildes 1988: 160-88). Only much later did
the state itself intervene through legislation. Such is 'government' in
the Foucaultian sense.

26

Foucault and Law

There is no doubt about the historical importance of the shift to the


focus on the govemment of population. Two additional points should
be noted. The first is that it is clear that a focus on population had
emerged significantly earlier than Foucault suggests. Populationist
politics are to be found playing a key role, for example, in the Renaissance cities of northern and central Italy. The city govemment of
Florence made frequent efforts to reglate the size of dowries since high
dowries led men to postpone marriage and this in turn led to declining
birth rates. The second point is that other strategic governmental
targets played a key role in modernisation alongside the concern with
population. One long-lasting governmental focus was on 'improvement', which first emerged in Reformation Europe involving not only
issues of population but also wider issues of economic development,
education and religin. The focus on improvement persistently
reappeared down into the nineteenth century. Similarly the preoccupation with 'civilisation' played a decisive role, especially in the era of
colonialism and later in connection with the govemment of indigenous
people in North America, Australia and elsewhere. These reservations
do not undermine his most general point about the emergence of distinctively new practices of govemment, but they do open up a space
for a more extended debate about their timing and sequence (a point
we return to in Part Three).
The thrust of Foucault's work on govemment can perhaps best be
brought out by focusing for a moment on his concept 'govemmentality'.
He seeks to draw attention to the emergence of new and distinctive mentalities of govemment or 'governmental rationality' which involved a
calculating preoccupation with activities directed at shaping, channellingandguidingtheconductofothers (Gordon 1991). Sometimes
such activities are undertaken by traditional organs of govemment. Such
activities are well illustrated by, but are by no means limited to, the
distinctive nineteenth-century practices of the appointment of
inspectors. Karl Marx and many others after him have drawn attention
to the enormous importance of the factory inspectors in England. In
a more recent study Bruce Curts paints a vivid picture of the role of
school inspectors in Caada West (eastern Ontario) in undertaking
projects directed at the 'improvement' of the population duringthe mid
nineteenth century (Curts 1992). Foucault himself frequently uses the
example of the medical profession as an important source of
'govemment' activity that becomes particularly apparent in periods of
significant shifts in the organisation of medical practice, as traced in
The Birth o ft he Clinic, or in response to plagues and epidemics. The
expansin of medical practice often went hand in hand with concerns
about the size and health of populations, and accelerated the practices
of'politicalarithmetic' (censuses, demography, etc.) and 'public health'
(provision of water supplies, sewage systems, etc.); this combination

An Introduction to Foucault

27

of increasingly organised and coherent medical interventions is well


captured by the phrase 'medical plice' (Rosen 1974).
One common feature of these examples of informal-governmental
government is that they involve, directly or otherwise, the production,
dissemination and utilisation of knowledge. Recording, counting,
tabulating, calculating, comparing have become both the means by
which governmental intervention expands and one of its chief byproducts. In the first instance much of the production of such empirical
and statistical knowledge was carried out by private individuis and
leamed sodeties; only later did these become part of the data-gathering
state agencies. The importance of such practices is captured in the phrase
'rule-by-records and rule-by-reports' (Smith 1985). This discussion of
the connection between government and the production of knowledge
serves to underline the general importance of Foucault's insistence on
the integration of knowledge and power, henee power-knowledge.
Not only is government an activity of institutional and quasi-state
bodies, it takes place in everyday practices, as is well illustrated by the
case of child-rearing practices which, while highly individualised,
exhibit distinct patterns that are heavily influenced by a succession of
child-rearing experts.
There is little doubt that Foucault's concept of governmentality is
extremely suggestive. This should not however blind us to certain
obvious weaknesses in Foucault's use of it. As we hinted above, he is
very undecided about the identification of spedfic periods of the
historical development of government. He does offer periodisations,
but he also drops and changes them. More significant perhaps is that
he has surprisingly little to say about the content of the 'mentalities'
of modem government. In this respect Foucault contrasts rather poorly
with Max Weber who provides a very carefully drawn picture of
modern bureaucratic rationality. Foucault should be regarded as
pointing us in a direction of inquiry rather than having completed that
inquiry. What kind of governmentality is associated with the passion
for inspection which is so characteristic of mid nineteenth-century
government? How did the self-consciously discretionary government
of 'cases' come to the fore in the mid twentieth century?
Closely related to the conception of government is another
'expanded' concept, namely, plice. While today we tend to think of
plice as an institution directed towards law enforcement, Foucault
revives a much older and broader conception of 'plice' whose object
is to 'foster citizens' lives and the state's strength' (Is it Useless to Revolt?
1981: 252). This view of policing involves a much wider range of
sodal interventions direded towards ensuring a productive and effective
citizenry which embellishes the stature of the state. Thus the terms
'plice' and 'government' are closely assodated; we return to this
topic in Part Three.

28

Foucault and Law

Strategies, programmes, policies and tactics


Foucault's concern with the practices of diverse agencies that go to make
up governmental activity creates a particular problem concerning
interpretations of his work for those, like ourselves, not raised on
continental philosophy. It concerns the part played by intentional or
purposeful activity in history. His resistance to the methods of orthodox
historical scholarship lead to his reluctance to accept that outcomes
can be understood as the result of intentional, preconceived purposes.
Since he is anxious to emphasise the part played by diverse but uncoordinated agencies, he is suspicious of any accounts which imply the
existence of some directing hidden hand or of some coordinating
agent, whether it be 'the State' or a 'ruling class' which, as it were, masterminds the disparate interventions of many different agencies. On
the other hand, he does not think that the trajectory of social change
is simply a matter of accident, since he claims to identify distinct
'stages', for example, of forms of govemment or of medical practice.
The upshot is that the conventional terms available to us for linking
the purposes and intentions of agents, such as 'strategies', 'programmes'
and 'tactics', to the results or outcomes of historical change of social
action either have to be rejected or, if they are to be used, have to be
used in a very different way.
This problem of interpretation is highlighted by another feature of
his general intellectual perspective. He shares with many of his contemporaries ahostility to 'humanism'. Some care needs to be taken in
order not to misunderstand what is involved. To be 'anti-humanist' does
not mean to be opposed to humanitarian causes and vales or to
deny the importance of 'human rights'. What is involved is a general
methodological concern. Social thought since the Enlightenment has
been dominated by 'humanism' in the sense that it takes the individual,
conceived as a well-willing and intentional actor, to be the primary agent
of social action. Foucault shifts the emphasis by refusing to see the
individual, always referred to in these discussions as the 'subject', as
the point of origin; rather the subject is the result or outcome of social
life. 'My objective ... has been to create a history of the different
modes by which, in our culture, human beings are made subjects' (S&P
1982: 208). The subject, with all the attributes of self-consciousness,
is not the cause or author of history, but rather its result.
One has to dispense with the constituent subject, to get rid of the
subject itself, that's to say, to arrive at an analysis which can account
for the constitution of the subject within a historical framework. (P/K
1980: 117)
The subject is always produced, is the result of social processes which
give rise to the 'subjectivity' within which individuis experience

An Introduction to Foucault

29

themselves. Foucault takes the notion of the subject through two


f urther stages. First, he is at pains to insist that subjects are not simply
the result of external social forces, but rather are actively engaged in
their own production; we produce ourselves as 'selves' or as identities.
His second extensin uses a significant feature of the word 'subject';
it has two senses, people are both subjects (self-conscious beings), but
they are also 'subjected' (power acts to produce 'subjection'). As he puts
it: 'An immense labor to which the West has submitted generations in
order to produce ... men's subjection: their constitution as subjects in
both senses of the word' (HoS 1978: 60).
Foucault's resistance to all analyses which start with the subject has
resulted in many commentators describing his position as 'structuralist'. Structuralism is the view that there are objective processes which
exist independently of consciousness and which produce subjects.
Foucault strenuously denies the label structuralist since he actively rejects
the existence of processes that lie outside consciousness. It is for this
reason that we describe his position as anti-humanist, although it
should be borne in mind that he does not himself use this term.
We now return to the question of how Foucault deais with the
issue of the role of intentionality or purpose in human action. He states
what at first sight is a paradox:
Power relations are both intentional and nonsubjective... they are
imbued, through and through with calculation: there is no power
that is exercised without a series of aims and objectives. But this does
not mean that it results from the choice or decisin of an individual
subject. (HoS 1978: 94-5)
This point is of great importance because unless we keep it in mind it
is all too easy to read Foucault as saying that the modern forms of dis
ciplinary power make up a monolithic regime of all-embracing and
all-consuming power. While he does not always say it as clearly as he
might, he holds that the three elements of power, its discourses, its
practices and its effects, never fit together or correspond (Gordon
1980:246-55). This point can be seen more concretely in the context
of his discussion of the success/failure of the prison; while the discourses
of incarceration speak of reforming the inmates, the practices and effects
of prison life 'produce' offenders. In brief, Foucault arges that while
prisons are advantageous for capitalist interests, this was 'discovered'
rather than intended or planned.
Power for Foucault never produces the effects its discourses promise.
This point has a similarity with an important sociological issue about
the gap between 'intentions' and 'unintended consequences' of social
action, found, for example, in the work of Robert Merton and C.W.
Mills. Much orthodox sociology has used this insight to set up a

30

Foucault and Law

practical project of the social sciences to cise the gap between policy
and outcome. Foucault strives to go beyond this pragmatic concern with
'unintended consequences' by insisting that the very nature of power,
its success/failure, lies in what we might cali the necessary non-correspondence between discourse, practice and effects.
One of his most interesting but tantalising approaches to this
question is his discussion of 'strategy'. He uses the term in a very dis
tinctive way. He proposes that in specific historical conjunctures
combinations of plans or programmes, distinct forms of knowledge and
particular practices 'come together' so that it is possible to identify the
existence of a strategy, for example the strategy of rehabilitation in mid
twentieth-century penology. At the same time, he refuses the idea that
strategies are coherent vehicles of the intentions of some identiflable
social agent such as a class or aparty. He is, for example, very suspicious
of any talk about the 'strategy' of the capitalist class or even of govemments. He attempts to drive his point home, in a way which in the
long run probably confuses rather than clarifies, by suggesting that
strategies can exist without there being any 'strategists'.
There is no doubt that the issue he addresses is important and
complex. It is one that has a particular significance for our concern with
law for two significant reasons. First, law seems to provide strong
evidence of the existence of strategies. For example, legislation such
as the reform of the poor law in Britain in 1834 or case law such as Brown
v. Board o f Education (1954) in the United States conceming civil rights
seem to provide evidence of moments of significant strategic shifts.11
Second, such legal change suggests that at particular historical moments
law reflects or incorporates an aggregation or condensation of shifts
in the disposition or direction of power.
Since this issue of 'strategy without strategists' has special relevance
for our understanding of law we have highlighted this issue and we will
retum to it again in Part Two. For present purposes it is sufficient to
note that we think it is important to pose the question of whether the
state and the legal system are significant institutional locations at
which power becomes aggregated or condensed. Sometimes Foucault
seems to make precisely this point. In a very characteristic formulation
he arges that
domination is organized into a more-or-less coherent and unitary
strategic form; that dispersed, heteromorphous, localized procedures
of power are adapted, re-enforced and transformed by these global
strategies ... a multiform production of relations of domination that
are partially susceptible of integration into overall strategies. (P/K1980:
142; emphasis added)

An Introduction to Foucault

31

But more often his preoccupation with the heterogeneity o f power and
its tactics, its dispersin and its capillary nature leads him to ignore this
aggregation and even to deny it. While everyday power is undoubtedly
crucial it is also important to keep under consideration the fact that the
diffuse techniques of power sometimes come to be aggregated in the
massive institutional presence of State, legal, military and economic apparatuses. The limitations of Foucault's treatment of 'strategy' stem from
his insistence on the diversity of power relations while at the same time
rejecting both structural determination and the existence of objective
interests, such as those of classes or institutional apparatuses. The
result is that he is left with no means of accounting for the aggregation
or globalisation of power. To talk of strategy as he does is to imply some
principie for the historical patterns of power relations without providing
the means to offer an explanation of their specific manifestations.
Let us consider his analysis of the strategies at play in the regulation
of sex and sexuality. He arges that in the nineteenth century the
discourses of sexuality were dominated by medical concepts and
analogies but that these were replaced by psychiatric concepts and
analyses in the twentieth century. The challenge is to explain why it
was that this movement occurred, how it went in one direction rather
than another. Despite his invoking of 'strategy' his general theoreti
cal stance impedes him from providing any but the most gestural
account of how this occurred. Boaventura de Sousa Santos criticises
Foucault along similar lines when he suggests that Foucault simply goes
too far in stressing the dispersin and fragmentation of power and that
this results in a lack of attention to the way in which hierarchical
patterns in the forms of power emerge and then change to different
conflgurations (Santos 1985).
One alternative to Foucault's treatment of strategy is provided by
Poulantzas who seeks to avoid the idea of a unitary, omniscient,
omnipresent 'Power-State'. While he suggests that the State is indeed
potent and ubiquitous, at the same time he draws attention to the
prodigious incoherence and chaotic character of State policies. 'Strategy',
in this view, emerges only after the event through the collision of
different tactics in which the general pattem of change is the complex
result of the balance of forces produced when the specific tactics of a
variety of social movements and classes clash and compete (Poulantzas
1985:135-7).12 It is worth stating that though we suggest the limitation
of Foucault's neglect of the condensation of power, particularly of State
power, is significant, this does not detract from the exciting potential
opened up by his discussion of power and strategy.

History, archaeology and genealogy


Foucault exhibits a deep caution about the nature of the historical
project such that he denies that what he is doing is 'history'. He is

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Foucault and Law

reacting against certain assumptions that have come to inform the


orthodox academic discipline of history. The problem with history
revolves around the way in which the past and the present are
conceived. The simplest illustration is the tendency for historical
scholarship to read the historical processes as the unfolding of the
present in the past; in this way conventional history focuses on those
features of the past which contribute to those elements which come
to form the present while downplaying those aspects judged not to be
significant to the present. For example, the history of political institutions is written by focusing on those features which play a role in
modern institutional forms of parliamentary democracy while the
elements that do not fit this model are treated as archaic, or ignored.
In broad terms it is the persistent evolutionary assumptions about the
connection between past and present which offend Foucault. As we have
already seen, his general strategy is to insist upon the uniqueness or
specificity of 'events'.
Foucault's espousal of first 'archaeology' and later 'genealogy' is a selfconscious attempt to escape from the pervasive features of orthodox
history, such as the assumptions of linearity, teleology, evolution.
We concntrate here on his method of genealogy and leave aside the
changes in his position which led him to move on from his earlier
concern with archaeology. For our purposes, both archaeology and
genealogy share the same general principies. Genealogy accords priority
to events by focusing on their singularity or particularity (and thus on
their heterogeneity, taking account of the role of accidents, errors, etc.).
His most general definition of the genealogical method identifies it
in the following terms:
What it [genealogy] really does is to entertain the claims to attention
of local, discontinuous, disqualified, illegitimate knowledges against
the claims of a unitary body of theory which would filter, hierarchise
and order them in the ame of some true knowledge ... Genealogies are therefore not positivistic returns to a more caref ul or exact
form of Science. They are precisely anti-sciences. (TI. 1980: 83)
The significant claim that he makes for his method is that it allows
access to those features which get pushed aside and forgotten in
orthodox history.
It is through revolt that subjectivity... introduces itself into history
and gives it the breath of life. [He gives the examples of resistance
by delinquents and the insane] ... One does not have to maintain
that these confused voices sound better than the others and express
the ultmate truth ... it is sufficient that they exist and they have
against them so much which is set up to silence them ... it is due

A n Introduction to Foucault

33

to such voices that the time of men does not have the form of an
evolution, but precisely that of a history. (Is it Useless to Revolt?
1981:8)
This passage shows his effort to escape from a linear view of history
conceived as sequences of cause and effect. Rather, he insists that if
history is to show how we have become what we are (henee his
description 'history of the present'), then it is about the 'small'
happenings, not themselves part of any master plan or subject to any
grand design.
This approach to historical events ties in with his vectoral analysis
of power described above. Disparate forces act upon social objeets
and the end result (the direction in which the object moves) is the
outeome of that totality of disparate forces, but is a direction distinct
from any of the constitutive forces at work. Still with this analogy, if
we regard the vectors as the intentions of social agents, the resultant
vector is not the coordinated result of any particular intention(s), but
is, necessarily, radically contingent. Outcomes are limited by the 'field
of possibility' within which the action is situated. In brief, the direction
of history is contingent.

Foucault and Marxism


A brief discussion o f Foucault's relationship to Marxism is necessary
because many features of his intellectual trajectory are reactions to the
significant influence of Marxism on French intellectual life. After a brief
period of membership of the French Communist Party (PCF), he made
an early breach with 'the Party' and exhibited increasing hostility
toward the Stalinist politics that he saw it representing. Theoretically
he treats Marxism as a tradition irretrievablymarked by economic reductionism. The paradoxical result was that in the 1960s and 1970s when
western Marxism was undergoing its most fertile development and
breaking, among other things, with a narrow equation of power, state
and repression, we find Foucault invoking what we might cali 'Marxism
at its worst' as the intellectual spur driving forward his reconceptualisation of power.
A central feature of Foucault's project lies in the distinctive form of
his engagement with the legacy of Marx.13 As is so often the case in
the history of debates with the 'ghost of Marx', they occur tangentially
and in fragments. This is certainly true in Foucault's case. While he
insists on the impossibility of undertaking historical scholarship
without taking serious account of Marx, most of his other scattered
comments are more negative (P/K 1980: 52-3). What Foucault does is
to 'use' Marx to set up a negative pole against which to elabrate his
alternative. The Marx that emerges is somewhat one-dimensional:

34

Foucault and Law

rigid determinist, economistic, with a narrow conception of power as


repression, and viewing the State as a unitary agent and the instrumental
bearer of the interests of the ruling class.
The other, and more interesting, facet of Foucault's treatment of Marx
is the conscious avoidance of Marx's concerns and his concepts. This
he does not because he rejects these concerns but rather in order to avoid
being trapped within the terms in which they have been debated in
the Marxist lineage. Foucault's relationship with Marx can best be
understood as a self-conscious avoidance of Marx, but it is an avoidance
that should not be mistaken as an ignorance of Marx. By 'avoiding' Marx
we should understand Foucault to be opening up new and unencumbered ways of addressing both new and classical problems. For example,
Foucault self-consciously avoids dealing with the question of the State.
'I don't want to say that the State isn't important; what I want to say
is that relations of power... necessarily extend beyond the limits of the
State' (P/K 1980: 122). Similarly, he avoids Marx's concept of ideology
for fear that it leads to theespousal of an opposition between truth and
falsity; thus Foucault's variant of the concept of discourse filis some part
of the space vacated by the concept ideology. One fruitful way of
understanding Foucault's work is to recognise his strategic reasons for
avoiding Marx.
However, there is a price to be paid for his concern to circumvent
a negative conception of power. His critical step is the equation and
conflation of negativity with repression; the result is that in order to
avoid a negative conception of power he first downplays (but does not
exelude) the repressive capacity o f power and th en proceeds to elabrate
an account of the modern forms of disciplinary power which is founded
on non-repressive forms of domination. In order to secure this objective
he sets out to purge all those elements associated with negativity and
repression. This has two significant consequences. In the first instance,
as we have seen already, he displaces the question of the State because
he views the Marxist problematic of the state as inescapably bound up
with the equation of class power and repression. Second, as we examine
in more detail in Part Two, the tendeney to view law as an adjunct of
sovereignty and centralised coercion leads him to displace or expel law
from any significant role in modern forms of domination.

Conclusin: the problem of modernity


All important intellectual work is an engagement with the present and
all significant contributions exhibita deep ambiguity about the present
with which they are trying to come to grips. In modern writing all sig
nificant contributions are both repelled and attracted by modernity
(Berman 1982). One way of coming to grips with Foucault is to view
him as deeply concemed to understand the trajectories of late twentieth-

An Introduction to Foucault

35

century life. Yet on the surface his concerns appear to be characteristically 'historical'. Most of his major studies are preoccupied with
transformations occurring towards the end of the eighteenth century
and the early nineteenth century. In his last major project, on the
history of sexuality, his immediate focus of attention is even earlier,
on the sexual ethics of classical Greece and Rome. The further back his
immediate ob ject of inquiry is located the more fiercely are his concerns
located in the present.
Perhaps the most significant reason for the wide-ranging interest and
engagement with Foucault's work is not so much that there is agreement
with either his methods or his conclusions, but rather that his writings
capture a deep and pervasive disenchantment with the modern
condition. Gone is the optimism generated in the eighteenth century
with the advance of reason; he problematises the idea that things get
better, humanity progresses, becomes more civilised, dispenses with
myth, superstition and religin as knowledge spreads its revelatory light
over more topics of human concern. Similarly the projects of material
and scientific progress of the nineteenth century and the expansionary vistas of the early twentieth century came increasingly under
scrutiny.
The decades approaching the end of the twentieth century are
marked by an escalating sense of rupture, the sense of the end of an
epoch. The two great competing systems spawned by industrial
capitalism, socialism and liberalism seem exhausted, the confrontation
between the politics of left and right has become increasingly sterile.
Part of the importance of Foucault undoubtedly stems from the fact
that he captures the doubts and uncertainties that are so widespread
today. Sure, technical advances of enormous potential continu to be
produced, but Science and technology are, for very good reasons, now
viewed as just as much the illness as the cure. Foucault is a good
example of a late twentieth-century thinker forced to abandon the
optimistic scenarios of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
In rejecting the now tarnished optimism with its confidence in the exponential growth of knowledge and material progress there is al ways the
danger of renouncing any concern with truth and knowledge and
lapsing into pessimistic fatalism. Foucault walked this wire; his writings
hover between an enthusiasm for the possibility of new emancipatory
projects and a fatalism which sees all new quests for knowledge as
yielding new and ever more sophisticated mechanisms of domination.
He also resonates with the current mood in that he is short on policy
and prescription since many of the problems we confront appear to be
intractable. He is deeply hostile to all myths and utopias whether od
or new, left or right. It is thus not surprising that there has been con
troversy over whether he should be regarded as optimist or pessimist,
conservative or anarchist. We decline to enter these controversies

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Foucault and Law

because they are more about the politics of the commentators than they
are about Foucault's politics. In so far as it is relevant, his own selfconception aligns him with what used to be called 'progressive' causes,
but he refuses to use such a term because the very idea of 'progress' is
one of the myths that Foucault's work seeks to problematise.
We suggest that there is no embarrassment in holding that some of
Foucault's own political stances, such as his naive 'abolitionist' views
about criminal justice or his ill-advised enthusiasm for the regime of
the mullahs in Irn, are frankly silly and barely worth debating.
Certainlyhe holds on to the enthusiasms of Parisian radicalism of the
spring and summer of 1968 longer than most However, any serious
assessment of Foucault depends not on the causes he espouses but on
what those who read him can do with his enormously fertile leads and
suggestions. It is to this task that we now turn our attention.

Part Two
Foucault on Law

2
Law and Modernity

Introduction
W e start our examination of Foucault's treatment of law by reminding
the reader that we make no claim to 'discover' a ready-made theory of
law in Foucault's writing. Law is never one of his explicit objects of
inquiry. Nevertheless he has a considerable amount to say about law.
The question of law not only figures significantly, but persistently
returns in his texts.
Before exploring Foucault's treatment of law one qualification is
needed. For convenience we refer throughout to the terms 'law' and
'the law' in the singular. However, there is an important sense in
which such usage is misleading. Law is not and never has been a
unitary phenomenon, even though the assumption that it is, has
played a central role in most legal discourses and theories of law. We
adhere to a view that law is a complex of practices, discourses and institutions. Over this plurality of legal forms 'state law' persistently, but
never with complete success, seeks to impose a unity. This approach
can be identified by the label 'legal pluralism'. To speak of 'law' or 'the
law', as we do, can be excused only because it is easier for authors and
reader alike; we return to this issue in Part Three.
Our account of Foucault's treatment of law is organised as follows:
the main question we address is, what is the connection, if any,
between law and modernity? We start with the most prominent and
persistent theme in Foucault's writing, which we cali 'law versus
discipline'. We then criticise and assess the group of ideas associated
with this position. Then we turn our attention to some other themes
that are present in his work but which are generally less developed and
have received less attention than the law versus discipline thesis.
Law comes to the fore in a group of Foucault's major texts written
around the late 1970s. Law forms a significant motif in two of his most
important and best-known texts, Discipline andPunish (D&P 1977) and
The History ofSexuality (HoS 1978). Law also figures significantly in a
group of essays and interviews from the mid 1970s collected under the
significant title Power/Knowledge (P/K 1980). In this collection the
second of his 'Two Lectures' is centrally preoccupied with the distinction
he wishes to sustain between 'law' and 'discipline'. This lecture is
39

40

Foucault and Law

important also in offering perhaps the most self-reflective overview of


his work during this period. He speaks about his 'guiding principie' and
his 'methodological imperatives' (TL1980: 94). Foucault, the otherwise
sceptical critic of all metatheories, comes closer in this text than
anywhere else to laying out an overarching conceptual f ramework and
philosophy of history. Because this text deais extensively with law and
Foucault's central methodological and theoretical concerns we feel
justified in attaching considerable weight to it.

Power and law


There is a general and persistent theme that runs through Foucault's
texts. He describes the general trajectory of his engagement with the
link between law and power in the following terms:
It was a matter not of studying the theory of penal law in itself, or
the evolution of such and such penal institution, but of analyzing
the formation of a certain 'punitive rationality'... Instead of seeking
the explanation in a general conception of the Law, or in the
evolving modes of industrial production ... it seemed to me far
wiser to look at the workings of Power, (in Rabinow 1984: 337-8)1
Time and again he links law with the negative conception of power
from which he strives elsewhere to escape, a 'juridico-discursive'
conception of power, by which phrase he identifies all forms of law
which specify prohibitions, 'Thou shalt n o t...'.
We shall try to rid ourselves of a juridical and negative representa
ron of power, and cease to conceive of it in terms of law, prohibition,
liberty and sovereignty... We must at the same time conceive of sex
without the law, and power without the king. (HoS 1978: 90-1)
In short, it is a question of orienting ourselves to a conception of
power that replaces theprivilege ofthe law with the viewpoint of the
objective, the privilege of prohibition with the viewpoint of tactical
eff icacy, the privilege of sovereignty with the analysis of a mltiple
and mobile field of forc relations, wherein far-reaching, but never
completely stable, effects of domination are produced. The strategical modeJ rather than the model based on law. (TL 1980:102; emphasis
added)2
Since these remarks go to the very core of his treatment of law it is as
well to offer a commentary on them. Here he sets up a concern to
challenge the conventional, and in particular the Marxist, conceptions
of state and power. His concern is to displace the equation of power

Law and Modernity

41

with repression exercised by some unitary agency (whether the State


or a ruling class). He points the finger at conventional conceptions of
law, typically def ined, as rules commanding behaviour backed by the
threat of coercive sanctions; such a view he treats as an exemplar of
precisely that view of power and the State which he seeks not only to
avoid, but to transcend. This view of law has indeed played a central
part in the history of legal thought. The formula 'law = rules + sanctions'
lies at the heart of the positivist tradition in jurisprudence. It is thus
pertinent that Foucault chooses to direct his fire against this widely held
and influential conception of law, but fails to engage with any more
sophisticated conceptions which seek to explore the connection
between legal regulation, legal rights and constitutionalism in the
bourgeois democratic societies.
It should be noted that in the remarks quoted above Foucault is
concerned with law only illustratively; this is one important consequence of the fact that law itself was not his immediate object of
inquiry. As a result he is not concerned to advance a more adequate
conception of law. What Foucault does focus his attention on is the
elaboration of an alternative conception of power. As we saw in Part
One, one easy way of signifying this change is the contention that power
is not simply negative but is also positive. Care needs to be taken,
remember, not to interpret this move on Foucault's part as saying that
power is in some sense 'good' rather than 'bad'. This is far from his
intention. Rather what he wants us to attend to is that power exists in
a multiplicity of different forms most of which do not manifest
themselves in coercion. The forms of power to which he directs our
attention are the 'small' powers. He underlines this pointby persistently
focusing attention on the power dimensin of knowledge, captured in
the linking achieved in his phrase 'power/knowledge'. The importance
of his rejection of law as 'rules backed by sanctions' will become
clearer when we consider the contrast he sets up between law and
discipline.
Law-as-sovereignty not only manifests the coercive power of the State
epitomised in the bloody vengeance wreaked on the bodies of those
who offend against the king, but law also involves a distinctive
production of truth.Not only do the procedures of law (trial, cross-examination, etc.) provide authorised means by which the truthis discovered,
but once enunciated law provides the guarantee of this truth. Against
law's self-image Foucault insists:
Law is neither the truth of power or its alibi. It is an instrument of
power which is at once complex and partial. The form of law with
its effects of prohibition needs to be resituated among a number of
other, non-juridical mechanisms. (P/K 1980:141)

42

Foucault and Law

Not only does law exhibit its own 'will to truth', it declares the guilt
of offenders, and the truth/validity of its own rules, but it exerts
'pressure', 'a power of constraint', on other discourses: 'it is as if even
the word of the law could no longer be authorized, in our society, except
by a discourse of truth' (OoD 1981: 55). Indeed in modemity law, along
with Science, provides the privileged source of truth: 'It's the charac
teristic of our Western societies that the language of power is law, not
magic, religin, or anything else' (P/K 1980: 201).
The truth of law is inscribed in its ultimate capacity to impose
violence. Relations of domination are imposed, Foucault suggests, in
a passage with strong Nietzschean overtones, through its 'rituals, in
meticulous procedures that impose rights and obligations':
the law is a calculated and relentless pleasure, delight in the promised
blood, which permits the perpetual instigation of new dominations
and the staging of meticulously repeated scenes of violence. The desire
for peace, the serenity of compromise, and the tacit acceptance of
the law, far from representing a major moral conversin or a utilitarian calculation that gave rise to the law, are but its result and, in
point of fact, its perversin ... Humanity does not gradually progress
from combat to combat until it arrives at universal reciprocity,
where the rule of law finally replaces warfare; humanity installs
each of its violences in a system of rules and thus proceeds from
domination to domination. (NGH 1984: 85)
The history of legal truth reveis the shifting dependence of legal
thinking on other systems of knowledge. From the mid nineteenth
century legal thought became suffused with elements drawn from
the psychological sciences, most evident in the abiding concern to
understand the 'dangerous individual'; these developments were born
at the boundaries and interchanges between law, psychiatry, psychology
and medicine.
Only an act, defined by law ... can result in a sanction ... But by
bringing to the fore not only the criminal as author of the act, but
also the dangerous individual as potential source of acts, does one
not give society rights over the individual based on what he is?
(1988a: 150)
The full implications of this shift have been held back and impeded
by the continuing concern with legal issues such as intention, motive,
responsibility and the elaboration of defences. Foucault says, somewhat
cryptically, that the delay in fully grasping the 'new' principie

Law and Modemity

43

indicates a f oreboding of the dreadful dangers inherent in authorizing


the law to intervene against individuis because of what they are; a
horrifying society could emerge from that. (1988a: 151)
Thus while Foucault is concerned to mark a distinction between law
and power, nevertheless in his detailed analyses law is itself a dangerous
and problematic manifestation of power.

Sovereignty and right


Foucault's application of the conventional imperative view of law as
the commands of a political sovereign is made more concrete when he
articulates a more speciflcally historical thesis. In his overview of the
rise of modemity his starting point is the 'Classical Age' (stretching from
the late sixteenth century through to the secondhalf of the eighteenth).
His purpose is to treat the formation of the great centralised nation
states, the paradigms for which were Britain and France, as the
precursors of the distinctively modern social formations. He draws
attention to a significant historical reversal; in the classical age triis
were secret while punishment was public, but in the modern age triis
are public, but punishment is, if not secret, then withdrawn behind insti
tutional walls. The main characteristic of the classical age he identifies
as the monarchical state constructed around the integration of 'law'
and 'sovereignty'.
Law was not simply a weapon skillfully wielded by monarchs: it was
the monarchic system's mode of manifestation and the form of its
acceptability. In Western societies since the Middle Ages, the exercise
of power has always been formulated in terms of law. (HoS 1978: 87)
Thus we see inscribed in the institutions of absolute monarchy ...
the great bourgeois, and soon republican, idea that virtue, too, is an
affair of the state, that decrees can be published to make it flourish,
that an authority can be established to make sure it is respected. (M&C
1965: 61)3
His most distinctive thesis is that it was not merely that law and
sovereignty constituted this 'juridical monarchy', but that law and
sovereignty have remained central to the self-understanding of the
modern forms of state power despite the passing of monarchical rule,
extinguished either by revolution or absorbed into constitutional
monarchies. His point is that the persistent focus on sovereignty and
centralised law obscures the most distinctive features of modemity,
speciflcally, the key importance of disciplinary power. It is an important
part of his project to insist that, while contained within the shell of

44

Foucault and Law

the od monarchical forms, modernity radically differs from the


classical age. Henee his cali to 'cut off the head of the King'.
Atbottom, despite the differences in epochs and objectives, the rep
resentaron of power has remained under the spell of monarchy. In
political thought and analysis we still have not cut o ff the head ofthe
king. Henee the importance that the theory of power gives to the
problem of right and violence, law and illegality, freedom and will,
and especially the state and sovereignty... To conceive of power on
the basis of these problems is to conceive it in terms of a historical
form that is characteristic of our societies: thejuridical monarchy. (HoS
1978: 88-9; emphasis added)
It should be noted that what Foucault does here is to set out a very
distinctive way of thinking about the place of law in modernity. When
he refers to the persistence in so much modern political and legal
thought of the central figure of 'the juridical monarchy' he is not
thinking literally of 'monarchs' but more broadly includes all forms of
unitary constitutionalism whether couched in terms of 'the Crown',
'Parliamentary sovereignty', 'the President' or 'the Constitution'. This
way of thinking about the modern forms of political power he views
as obscuring our understanding of the core features of modernity.
Foucault's line of thought seeks to undercut the self-evident and
taken-for-granted discourses of modern constitutional thought. It has
far-reaching implications for the way in which he addresses the place
of law in modernity. The core of his thesis presents state legal systems
as irrevocably linked to notions of sovereignty and his broad conception
of 'juridical monarchy'. Thought of in this way, he presents law as being
essentially premodem. We arge that, while Foucault is correct in
stressing the inadequacy of political thought couched in terms of
sovereignty to understand the complexity and diversity of modern
power, he is wrong mechanically to equate modern state law with these
discursive forms.
This account of the classical era characterised by the three elements
of law, monarchy and sovereignty is supplemented by a conception of
'right' conceived as providing the discursive cement of the premodern
era.
The essential role of the theory of right, from medieval times
onwards, was to fix the legitimacy of power; that is the major
problem around which the whole theory of right and sovereignty
is organized ... My general project has been ... to show the extent
to which, and the forms in which, right (not simply the laws but the
whole complex of apparatuses, institutions and regulations respon-

Law and Modernity

45

sible for their application) transmits and puts in motion relations that
are not relations of sovereignty, but of domination. (TL 1980: 95-6)
This conception of 'right' is rooted in notions of a 'divine right of
kings' and in an imperative conception of law; the king's right is
viewed as a right to command. But in the passage quoted above
Foucault effects an unexplored shift; a shift from 'right' to 'rights'. This
has the eff ect of locating the modern discourses of 'rights' (whether of
private rights or human rights) as synonymous with the imperative
notion of 'right' of the juridical monarchy and to bind them cise by
attributing to rights a general function of legitimation. This slippage
from 'right' to 'rights' has serious consequences; it leads Foucault,
like many other recent radical thinkers, to disparage the transformatory capacity of rights within modern political systems. It also produces
a very distorted account of modern disciplinary society because he takes
no account of the struggles for civil and political rights which have
traversed all the fields of Foucault's own studies, whether of prisons,
mental institutions or hospitals. He makes an important point when
he insists that rights and freedoms are practices and no constitution
or bil of rights can strictly 'guarantee' them, but it does not follow that
such provisions are mere rhetorical flourishes.
Liberty is a practice ... The liberty of men is never assured by the insti
tutions of law that are intended to guarantee them. This is why almost
all of these laws and institutions are quite capable of being turned
around. Not because they are ambiguous, but simply because 'liberty'
is what must be exercised ... I think it can never be inherent in the
structure of things to guarantee the exercise of freedom. The guarantee
of freedom is freedom. (Rabinow 1984: 245)
The questions of sovereignty and power connect with his pervasive
concern with the enigma of modern power. In the classical era power
was transparent, epitomised by the command-power of the king,
while in modern society power has become diffused and its location
becomes almost mysterious. This shift is epitomised in the visibility of
political power and the often veiled reality of economic power. The
result is that the tracking of domination, its strategies, techniques
and technologies has come to form a central concern of both scholarship and political practice.
The problem for me is how to avoid this question, central to the
theme of right, regarding sovereignty and the obedience of individual
subjects in order that I may substitute the problem of domination
and subjugation for that of sovereignty and obedience. (TL 1980: 96)

46

Foucault and Law

In brief, Foucault is concemed to distinguish between the general


characteristics of power in absolutist monarchies and liberal states.
Despite his concern to distance himself from Marxism it is noticeable
that here he comes cise to returning to Marxism's concern with the
mechanisms of general forms of domination. This tendency manifests
itself in his treatment of discipline as a defining characteristic of
modernity.

Discipline and law


A distinctive feature of Foucault's treatment of modernity is the
importance he attaches to the emergence of 'the disciplines' as the char
acteristic and pervasive forms of modern power. Discipline and law are
presented as dual but opposing processes. In the first place 'the effective
mechanisms of power function in opposition to the formal framework
that it had acquired' (D&P 1977: 222). In other words, while such dis
ciplinary institutions as the prison are located within a juridical
framework, the way they work is through disciplines that operate
outside or in parallel with this legal framework:
the disciplines characterize, classify, specialize ... they effect a
suspensin of the law that is never total... Regular and institutional
as it maybe, the discipline, in its mechanism, is a 'counter-law'. (D&P
1977:223)
The disciplines are to be found 'on the underside of the law' (D&P 1977:
223). The result is that all the institutions of incarceration, prisons,
asylums and, by extensin, factories and schools, operate in such a way
as to 'naturalise' the legal power to punish at the same time as they
'legalise' the technical power to discipline (D&P 1977: 303). This
produces the 'great carceral continuum', which functions through an
ongoing 'communication between the power of discipline and the
power of law' (D&P 1977: 304).
The techniques o f surveillance are the epitome of disciplinary power.
The nineteenth-century asylums for the insane were built on the dual
pillars of 'surveillance' and 'judgement'. The asylum was a 'juridical
microcosm' (M&C 1965: 251, 265).
The asylum as a juridical instance recognized no other. It judged
immediately and without appeal. It possessed its own instruments
of punishment, and used them as it saw fit. (M&C 1965: 266)
The great institutions of incarceration, the asylum and the prison,
epitomise a mutual dependence of law and discipline. Increasingly they
become disaggregated and the disciplines continu to multiply and to

Law and Modernity

47

operate independently of law. From the non-voluntary subjection to


the 'gaze' of authority in the prison cell or hospital ward, the general
theme of surveillance has become one of widening ramification as both
human and technological surveillance, whether through direct observation (the reports of teachers, social workers, etc.) or by means of
indirect scrutiny (the cumulative records of tax collectors, credit card
operators, etc.). Increasingly surveillance expands through techno
logical applications, for example through computerised and video
tracking and scrutiny which has supplemented and displaced the
'gaze' of authority (Dandeker 1991). In drawing attention to the
expansin of surveillance, care should be taken not to fall into some
versin of 'conspiracy theory' which views such expansions of power
as irreversible and unchallengeable. Foucault's thematic of power
should not lead to making a 'fetishism of power' in which 'power'
becomes the subject of history, seen as undergoing evolutionary
natural selection to produce ever more efficient and ensnaring forms
(O'Malley 1993).
While Foucault sometimes counterposes 'law' and 'discipline' in
order to highlight the distinctiveness of the modern disciplines, he is
best understood, as is clear in the passages quoted abo ve, as drawing
attention to the interaction and interdependence of disciplinary
practices and their legal framework. While he does not develop this
insight in detail it is one which is familiar from the sociology of organisations, epitomised in studies of the plice, where the formal and
informal modes of operation can be seen to operate side by side. In
addition, Foucault advances the interesting idea that law comes to be
'colonised' by the new disciplines being invaded by practices of observation and training, as is readily evident in contemporary juvenile
justice (DScP 1977:170).
Foucault should be understood as advancing a broad historical
thesis. In a key passage he presents the rise of disciplinary administration
as the 'dark side' of law.
Historically, the process by which the bourgeoisie became in the
course of the eighteenth century the politically dominant class was
masked by the establishment of an explicit, coded and formally egalitarian juridical framework, made possible by the organization of a
parliamentary, representative regime. But the development and
generalization of disciplinary mechanisms constituted the other, dark
side of these processes. The general juridical form that guaranteed
a system of rights that were egalitarian in principie was supported
by these tiny, everyday, physical mechanisms, by all those systems
of micro-power that are essentiallynon-egalitarian and asymmetrical that we cali the disciplines ... The real, corporal disciplines

48

Foucault and Law


constituted the foundation of the formal, juridical liberties. (D&P
1977:222)

In other words the advent of representative democracy existed side by


side with the rise of an expanding disciplinary continuum which
produced strong though barely visible mechanisms of domination. The
practical reality of such subordination is itself legitimised by the
juridical framework within which the disciplines are constituted; law
functions as the mask of real power.
Alongside this visin of law as masking domination and as a vehicle
of legitimation there is a trace in his writing that offers a rather
different and more interesting view of law as, in some important
sense, constitutive of the new forms of modern power:
after the eighteenth century, the religious framework of those rules
[of sexual morality] disappears in part, and then between a medical
or scientiflc approach and a juridical framework there was competition, with no resolution. (GoE 1984: 357)
Law in this guise expresses the paradox of modemity. Confronted by
the rise of the new disciplines, that are themselves exterior to law, the
response of law is to seek to control or 'recode them in the form of law'
(HoS 1978: 109). Such processes have been aptly described as 'juridication', that is that non-legal forms of discipline acquire legalistic
characteristics.4 Institutional rules governing such matters as work
discipline or 'codes of conduct' not only come to be couched in legal
language but invoke legalistic procedures, such as the right of representation and rights of appeal. Thus with respect to work-discipline
employees are no longer subject to the traditional prerogative of 'hire
and f ir'; today 'charges' have to be laid in writing, the accused is given
the right of representation and of appeal. The significance of the
advancing legalism that lies at the heart of juridification is that it is a
small step before the juridified processes come under the jurisdiction
of state-law institutions, or before parallel quasi-judicial institutions are
invented.
Yet despite this suggested 'recoding' of the new disciplinary
mechanisms of power, Foucault is reluctant to grant any significant
effectivity to law. Time and again he retreats to formulations in which
law is viewed as 'utterly incongruous with the new methods of power'
that are 'not ensured by right but by technique, not by law but by normalization, not by punishment but by control' (HoS 1978: 89).
While there are points in his treatment that focus on the interdependence of law and discipline, Foucault's broad developmental thesis
is one which refuses to accord any major role to legal regulation in
creating the distinctive features of modernity. Thus there is a dual

Law and Modemity

49

impulse that leads Foucault to marginalise the role played by law. The
first, as we have seen, is his historical analysis of the central role
played by law in constituting the pre-modern complex of monarchylaw-sovereignty. The second motive that leads him to displace law is
methodological. It stems from the reversal he advocates for the study
of power and involves a shift of emphasis from state-power to local or
'capillary-power'. He uses 'capillary' as a metaphor to illustrate the
multitude of small intersecting mechanisms through which power
passes in contrast to the heavy-hand of coercive power exemplifled by
the harsh punishments of the pre-modern era, such as capital
punishment or transportation.
One further feature of Foucault's treatment of 'discipline' should be
noted. In Discipline and Punish he focuses on 'the body' as the target
of first punishment and then discipline, but the subsequent trajectory
of his writing sees an expansin: first to focus on the 'soul' (the
'knowable man', the psyche, subjectivity, personality, etc.) as the
target of disciplinary practices; and second, in a more radical shift, to
focus on the 'government of the self'. In brief, there is a shift from
discipline to self-discipline. This progression is accompanied by the rise
of the psychological sciences and professions (Rose 1989). In this
change of emphasis from external constraint to internal states of
conscience there is a corresponding further disaggregation of law and
discipline.

Norms and normalisation


The operation of the new disciplinary mechanisms of power is ensured
not by law, but rather by normalisation. 'The discourse of discipline
has nothing in common with that of law, rule, or sovereign w ill... The
code they come to define is not that of law but that of normalization'
(TL 1980: 106). He suggests that ever since antiquity there has been a
competition between 'bio-power' and juridical power, made manifest
in the 'growing importance assumed by the action of the norm, at the
expense of the juridical system of the law' (HoS 1978: 144).
A significant but elusive feature of his treatment of the rise of the
disciplines is this emphasis he places on the role of 'norms'. Discipline,
rather than being constituted by 'minor offences', is characteristically
associated with 'norms', that is, with 'standards' that the subject of a
discipline come to internalise or manifest in behaviour, for example
standards of tidiness, punctuality, respectfulness, etc. These standards
of proper conduct put into place a mode of regulation characterised
by interventions designed to correct deviations and to secure compliance
and conformity; normalisation is thus counterposed to his prohibitionpunishment model of law. The 'norm' is also implicit in surveillance
in that it provides the criteria that the gaze invokes (for example,

50

Foucault and Law

deference is translated into a sequence of behavioural signs) and


deviance involves the infraction of the norm. It is through the repetition
of normative requirements that the 'normal' is constructed and thus
discipline results in the securing of normalisation by embedding a
pattern of norms disseminated throughout daily life and secured
through surveillance.
For Foucault another important difference between the disciplines
and law is marked by their characteristic forms of punishment. In the
place of the corporeal punishments of the od criminal law, 'exercises'
and the repetition of tasks characterise the disciplinary model of biopower. In turn these new forms of sanctions exist side by side with a
greatly extended range of 'rewards' (for example, ranks, grades, prizes,
badges, privileges). Thus the contrast he draws is between 'standards',
which lay down general targets or criteria of judgement (such as
attitude, demeanour) and 'rules', the legal form which he contines to
conceive of as negative and prescriptive. The new forms of power
that he associates with the displacement of the juridical system of law
by norms and normalisation involve
a power whose tasks is to take charge of life needs continuous
regulatory and corrective mechanisms ... Such a power has to
qualify, measure, appraise, and hierarchise, rather than display itself
in its murderous splendor. (HoS 1978:144)
It is his conception of law as commands that leads Foucault not to
attend to the normative dimensin of legal rules. There is one sense,
however, in which he does address law as normative, and that i s as a
system of universal norms. One dimensin of the distinction between
law and disciplines is that between universal norms and the particularity of the disciplines; while the juridical system defines juridical
subjects according to universal norms, the disciplines characterise,
classify, specialise. They suspend the law such that the discipline is a
'counter-law'. His point is not to explore the normativity of law but
merely to contrast 'universal juridicism' with the speciflcity of disci
plinary interventions (D&P 1977: 223).
As we have seen, much of Foucault's account invokes a general
opposition between disciplinary and juridical power, but just occasionally he insists that this is not his intent. He denies that he
counterposes a 'society of sovereignty' and a 'disciplinary society'.
His positive thesis is that 'in reality we have a triangle; sovereigntydiscipline-government, that has as its primary target the population
and its essential mechanism apparatuses of security' (G 1979:18-19).
In another similar formulation Foucault insists that 'the powers of
modern society are exercised through, on the basis of, and by virtue
of, this very heterogeneity between a public right of sovereignty and

Law and Modernity

51

a polymorphous disciplinary mechanism' (TL 1980:106). But despite


formulations of this type his predominant tendency is to counterpose
the disciplines to law, that is he conceives the two as antithetical and
'absolutely incompatible'(TL 1980: 104). A survey of Foucault's varied
formulations of the relationship between law and discipline reveis a
preponderant tendency to oppose law and discipline.
What sense should be made of his determined separation of law and
disciplines followed by partial retreats? In the first place, Foucault
separates these concepts primarily to give emphasis to the mltiple
origin of the disciplines in dispersed social practices, in particular
those emanating from the 'human sciences'. On the other hand, he
recognises that law has not disappeared or withered away. Since law
does not constitute his object of inquiry, he has no special interest in
exploring one rather obvious, but nonetheless attractive, hypothesis,
namely, that associated with the rise of the disciplines there has
occurred a change in the form of law.
Foucault draws attention to one consequence of the extended reach
of the modern disciplines as the expansin of the reach of judges and
judging:
the activity of judging has increased precisely to the extent that the
normalising power has spread... The judges of normality are present
everywhere. We are in the society of the teacher-judge, the doctorjudge, the educator-judge, the 'social worker'-judge. (D&P 1977: 304)
The result is identifled as a passage from an age of 'inquisitorial' justice
to an age of 'examinatory justice' (D&P 1977: 305). He also gives an
earlier example of the extended political role of doctors around the time
of the French Revolution. In addition to being technicians of medicine,
doctors carne to play expanding judgemental roles, for example in the
economic distribution of assistance, and a 'moral, quasi-judicial role
in its attribution' as 'the guardian of public moris and public health
alike' (BC 1973: 42). As normalisation extends both its targets and its
instruments, so judging becomes transformed. Judges become the
bearers of normalising power while at the same time the judicial role
is taken on by these other agents who make up the complex of 'the
judges of normality'.
Foucault's account of the difference between law and discipline is
at its sharpest where he draws this contrast between universal law and
'counter-' or 'infra-law', involving an 'infra-' or 'micro-penality' that
takes possession of an area left empty or never colonised by the law,
providing regulation for diverse types of behaviour. These micropenalties involve 'offences' such as lateness, untidiness, disobedience,
insolence. His point is that these wrongs are, on the one hand, so trivial

52

Foucault and Law

as to be beneath the attention of law but, on the other, are the very
stuff and heart of the modern disciplines.

Law, government and governmentality


One of the most important stages in the development of Foucault's work
is the shift from a focus on discipline to government. He describes the
general development of his project in terms that are worth quoting at
length.
It was a matter not of studying the theory of penal law in itself, or
the evolution of such and such penal institution, but of analyzing
the formation of a certain 'punitive rationality'... Instead of seeking
the explanation in a general conception of the Law, or in the
evolving modes of industrial production ... it seemed to me far
wiser to look at the workings of Power... I was concerned ... with
the refinement, the elaboration and installation since the seventeenth
century, of techniques of 'governing' individuis - that is, for
'guiding their conduct' - in domains as different as the school, the
army, and the workshop. Accordingly, the analysis does not revolve
around the general principie of Law or the myth of Power, but
concerns itself with the complex and mltiple practices of a 'gov
ernmentality' which presupposes, on the one hand, rational forms,
technical procedures, instrumentations through which to operate and,
on the other hand, strategic games which subject the power relations
they are supposed to guarantee to instability and reversal, (in
Rabinow 1984: 337-8)
Modernity for Foucault is marked by the emergence of 'government'
and 'governmentality'. As we have seen he uses the term 'government'
in a way that is very different from the conventional sense of state
executives and legislatures. One important implication of Foucault's
conception of government is that it is consistent with his downgrading of the importance of the state and with It legal regulation. We retum
below to this relative neglect of the state since it has important implications for his treatment of law.
The reason that Foucault's discussion of 'government' and 'plice'
is important for our present concern with his treatment of law is that
time and again he stresses the essentially non-legal character of his
expanded conception of government. He insists that 'government' is
not a matter of imposing laws on men, but rather of disposing
things, that is to say to employ tactics rather than laws, and if need
be to use the laws themselves as tactics. (G 1979: 13)

Law and Modernity

53

And again:
the instruments of government, instead of being laws, now come to
be a range of multiform tactics. Within the perspective of
government, law is not what is important. (G 1979: 13; emphasis
added)5
The deployment of 'multiform tactics' is illustrated in the link that exists
between 'government' and 'population' where a variety of experts
(quantifying, calculating and codifying) scattered across a range of
agencies generate social policies that operate both to constitute the
'social problems' at which govemmental action is directed and actively
to reglate, control and coordnate the targets thus created. Whether
Foucault is correct in suggesting that in this context of modern
government 'law is not important' we consider later.
Foucault abandons the historical distinction between the classical
and modern period. In its place he adopts a set of historical stages that
push the juridical state back into the feudal period, with the 'administrative state' grounded in 'regulation' emerging in the fifteenth
century and the 'govemmental state' in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries (G 1979: 21). The govemmental state is characterised by the
importance of the themes he had previously announced, the central
focus on the regulation of 'the population' (rather than territory) and
the role of 'plice'. He gives this stage a new designation when he speaks
of society being controlled by apparatuses of 'security'. He tries to
capture the new form of government by speaking of 'the governmentalisation of the state' by which he seeks to embrace the whole range
of govemmental activity, the 'multiform tactics'.
A significant implication of this treatment is that it amounts to a tacit
renunciation of the view that absolutism marks a more or less sharp
transition to the modern forms of power that he had previously
encompassed within the 'disciplinary society'. Nowthere is no break
or sharp transition, but rather an expansin in the range and scope of
govemmental institutions. But it is of the greatest signiflcance that what
gets missed in this protracted process, stretching from the eighteenth
century to the present, is any attention to the democratisation of the
representative institutions and, more generally, with forms of participation in govemmental processes, whether it be the rise of political
parties or participatory organisations such as trade unions. One further
consequence is that there is no place in his treatment for the notion
of citizenship and certainly nothing which corresponds to any idea of
an expanded citizenship that moves from the formal civil rights of the
eighteenth century to the securing of universal franchise6 and the social
citizenship, epitomised by the welfare state, by the mid twentieth
century (Marshall 1963).

54

Foucault and Law

Foucault's focus is upon the emergence of a concern with 'security'


within modern governmental rationality. The English word 'security'
does not convey the sense of Foucault's discussion; the term 'welfare'
is probably closer. It is embedded in the shift from a view of individ
uis as 'subjects' to one in which they are conceived as the bearers of
'interests', that is, they are economic subjects, subjects or, to be more
precise, 'subjects of the state', considered only in so far as the state
requires to reglate their conduct or to demand performance from them,
military conscription and imposition of taxes being two central
examples. The individual, when considered as a bearer of interests,
requires the state to take cognisance of those interests, in their multiplicity and complexity. 'Security' f unctions not by negative prescription
or refusal, but rather through the specification of a range of tolerable
variation. Thus liberalism constructs a complex governance within
which political, economic and juridical instances of subjectivity are
dispersed.
The association of 'security' with 'liberty' marks not merely the rise
to prominence of rights discourses, but involves the idea that the
systematic realisation of political and juridical rights are essential
conditions of 'good government' which is itself a precondition for the
persistence, stability and prosperity of both economic and political
government. Gordon succinctly captures this governmental role of
rights: 'disrespect of liberty is not simply an illegitimate violation of
rights, but an ignorance of how to govern' (Gordon 1991: 20). It
needs to be stressed that Gordon goes signiflcantly beyond Foucault
in giving weight to the juridical forms of liberty. This concern with rights
and the conditions of prosperity can be seen as reaching a high point
in Keynesian economic strategy in which the attempt to master cyclical
economic crises and to secure the emblematic goal of full employment
are conceived as preconditions of both economic prosperity and
political stability. The 'security-liberty' characterisation of liberalism
poses the question: what part does law play in modern governmental
rationality?
Recall that Foucault asserts 'law is not important' (G 1979:13). His
account of the place of law is, in fact, more developed. The transition
to modern governmental rationality involves a distinct and significant
shift from some of his earlier positions associated with his expulsin
of law discussed above. As has been demonstrated, in his major texts
produced between 1975 and 1977, Discipline and Punish, History o f
Sexuality and Power/Knowledge, he equates law with sovereignty and the
juridical monarchy; he is at pains to stress not only the dispersin but
the privatisation of disciplinary power.
However there are in this group of texts hints of a different conceptualisation, one we can lcate as the retreat from a transition from
'law to disciplines' to a new focus on 'law and regulation'. One of his

Law and Modernity

55

key formulations posits this historical shift from law to regulation. This
transition occurs when he suggests that law does not simply 'fade into
the background' (HoS 1978:144). It is this insight that is developed in
the 'late Foucault', the Collge de France lectures of 1978 and 1979,7
the essays 'Governmentality' (G 1979) and 'Omnes et Singulatim'
(O&S 1981), the interest in 'liberalism' and, more generally, in his
concern with the 'government of the self'. The root of this change of
approach is the basicbut important point that 'society' is an entity that
had, during the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to
be discovered, whereas the nation conceived as a 'territory' was
something that could be acted upon. But 'society' is a 'complex and
independent reality that has its own laws' and thus cannot simply be
acted upon (Foucault Live 1989: 261). Society necessitates 'good
government', getting it right, since undesired results and unintended
consequences of any active intervention may actually make things
worse. It is this caution about the desirability and even possibility of
government that sparks his interest in liberalism. In this phase of his
work the earlier expulsin of law from modernity is significantly
modified. Now his conception of law focuses on the purposive rationality of the legislative output of representative legislatures. He
emphasises the increasing particularism of regulatory instruments.
The previous conception of law as a totalising and transcendentunity
is superseded by the historically specific production of regulatory
devices that mediate between state and civil society and between state
and individual. Foucault never developed this line of thought, but its
presence underpins our claim that the study of the part played by law
in modern governance is consistent with and can draw stimulus from
Foucault's work.

Foucault's expulsin of law


We have demonstrated that Foucault's project of redirecting the study
of power and of exploring the part played by the disciplines in modern
government has as one of its distinctive effects the displacement of law.
the analysis ... should not concern itself with the regulated and
legitmate forms of power in their central locations ... On the
contrary, it should be concerned with power at its extremities... with
those points where it becomes capillary... one should try to lcate
power at the extreme points of its exercise, where it is always less legal
in character. (HoS 1978: 96-7; emphasis added)
From this injunction to seek out power in its less legal manifestations
it follows that research on the nature of power should be directed not
towards the juridical edifice of sovereignty and the state apparatuses,

56

Foucault and Law

but towards domination and the operations of power in their dispersed


and localised sites. Thus it is apparent that the most distinctive features
of Foucault's account of the historical emergence of modernity led him
to present a view which can be aptly summarised as the expulsin of
law from modernity. This 'expulsin of law' is found in his metahistorical thesis that law constituted the primary form of power in the
classical or pre-modern era and in his point that law lingers on in the
doctrine of sovereignty which contines to play a significant ideological
role in political discourse. In the real world of power, law has been
supplanted by the disciplines and by government as the key embodiments of power in modern society.
His expulsin of law is explicit in one of his most distinctive formulations.
We must eschew the model of Leviathan in the study of power. We
must escape from the limited field of juridical sovereignty and state
institutions, and instead base our analysis of power on the study of
the techniques and tactics of domination. (TL 1980: 102)
This methodological move presents Foucault with a serious difficulty:
how to secure a focus on localised power without at the same time
ignoring the indisputable significance of state and other forms of cen
tralised and institutionalised power? As we have seen in Part One this
is one of the most serious weaknesses in Foucault's work. We demn
strate in Part Three that it need not be a fatal weakness and that a theory
of governance can adequately take account both of the diffusion of
micro-powers and the aggregation of such powers at the level of the
state and other institutional levels.

The destiny of law


As we have seen, Foucault's expulsin of law from modernity leaves
law with, at best, an ambiguous role in his shifting conception of dis
ciplinary and post-disciplinary society. He does, however, offer other
suggestions as to the destiny of law: 'it is part of the destiny of the law
to absorb little by little elements that are alien to it' (D&P 1977: 22).
Foucault's account of the decline of law does not seem to involve the
thesis that law will wither away. Rather his position can be characterised
as allocating to law an increasingly subordnate or support role within
contemporary disciplinary society.
I do not mean to say thatlawfades into the background or that insti
tutions of justice tend to disappear, but rather that the law operates
more and more as a norm, and the judicial institution is increasingly
incorporated into a continuum of apparatuses (medical, administrative, and so on) whose functions are for the most part regulatory.
(HoS 1978: 144)

Law and Modernity

57

Here he suggests two distinct tendencies. The first tendency is a versin


of the widely held view that counterposes law and regulation, seeing
the rise of administrative and technological regulation as signalling a
decline or demise of law (Hayek 1982). What, for Foucault, distinguishes
the new forms of power is that they function primarily by means of
surveillance. For reasons that he does not explain he views law as not
having the capacity 'for the codification of a continuous surveillance'
(TL 1977: 104). This view does not strike us as persuasive since legal
mechanisms are increasingly directed toward setting up the procedural
mechanisms of a wide variety of systems of surveillance, for example
by stipulating what records may be maintained by credit agencies, what
must be disclosed to those subject to surveillance, and to whom such
information may be disclosed. In short, modern law increasingly
functions through such 'once removed' forms of regulation.
In general, Foucault's image of modern law is one of a mechanism
that is ineffectual and generally epiphenomenal, confined mainly to
providing legitimations for the disciplinary technologies and nor
malising practices established by other mechanisms (D&P 1977: 222).
The kind of evidence on which he relies is illustrated by his contention
that while legal principies have increasingly sought to restrict the
incarceration of juveniles without explicit legal authorisation, yet
incarceration contines to increase under the auspices of the new dis
ciplines of medicine, social work and psychiatry. But the question that
needs to be posed is: what does the evident and undisputable fact that
law is relatively ineffective demnstrate? It is too weak merely to reply
that law is ineffective. What we need to ask is: how is law implicated
within different social relations? In particular we need to direct our
attention to some of the persistent questions of classical jurisprudence about the capacity of legal control of diverse social practices,
whether of the 'new' disciplines or the 'od' disciplines. The adequate
pursuit of these questions requires the abandonment of jurisprudence's assumption of legal effectiveness, but it also requires the
rejection of Foucault's presumption of legal weakness. Again we need
to recognise that fruitful inquiry requires us to focus on the interaction of law and other disciplinary practices. Only then is it possible to
distinguish between the different forms of legal effectiveness and to
explore our intuitive judgement that there is considerable variation in
the effectivity of law. This allows us to return to those classical but still
important questions about the capacity of law to check non-legal
forms of power.
One persistent f eature of Foucault's reflections on the destiny of law
is the contention that there is some fundamental incompatibility or
tensin between the legal form and the new forms of power.

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Foucault and Law


For this is the paradox of a society which, from the eighteenth
century to the present, has created so many technologies of power
that are foreign to the concept of law: it fears the effects and proliferations of those technologies and attempts to recode them in forms
of law. (HoS 1978: 109)

We have been engaged for centuries in atype of society in which the


juridical is increasingly incapable of coding power, of serving as its
system of representation. Our historical gradient carries us further
and further away from a reign of law that had already begun to recede
into the past at a time when the French Revolution and the accompanying age of constitutions and codes seemed to destine it for a
future that was at hand. (HoS 1978: 89)
This emphatic position receives a characteristically Foucaultian
treatment. Over time he offers a series of alternative formulations
without offering a more elaborated treatment. For example, he describes
the fate of law in the following terms: 'the procedures of normalisa
tion come to be ever more constantly engaged in the colonisation of
those of law' (TL 1980: 107). His terminology changes, but formula
tions such as 'absorbing' (D&P 1977: 22), 'recoding' (HoS 1978: 109),
'incorporation' (HoS 1978:144), 'colonisation' (TL 1980:107), and 'reorganisation of right' (TL 1980: 107) are each attempts, none more
satisfactory than the others, to specify the character of the engagement
between law and the new disciplines.
Modern power characteristically employs the discourses of law, but
Foucault is concerned to suggest that this is a surface phenomenon,
even an ideological phenomenon, although as we have seen he avoids
this term. His point, we suggest, is to insist on some basic incompatibility between the form of law and the new disciplines. This
incompatibility arises only from his own insistence on the unbreakable link between law and sovereignty and the command model of law
that it generates. The connection between law and the new disci
plines is much less troubling and involves no necessary tensin or
contradiction the moment we abandon his unitary model of monar
chical law. A more adequate conception of law must start by conceding
that like all other social relations law is subject to both change and
variation in form. Once this simple, but fundamental, point is made
it allows us to re-present the problem in a more manageable and
fruitful way. The question now becomes: how is law articulated with
the new disciplines? Or, more accurately, how are the shifting forms
of law articulated with the new disciplines? It is this reformulation of
Foucault's problematic that makes possible the retrieval of law that we
pursue in Part Three.

Critique of Foucault's
Expulsin of Law

Introduction
The primary theme that emerges from Foucault's treatment of the
origins of the modern state and disciplinary society is one which casts
law in the role of a pre-modern harbinger of absolutism. This line of
thought can only impede inquiry into the part played by law in the
govemance of modern social relations. It is necessary to set out the deficiencies of this position in order to clear the space to embark on just
such an investigation. Foucault's tendency to marginalise law contrasts
sharply with the major drift of twentieth-century thought that has
invested law with an increasingly central role in modern society. Such
views cover a wide spectrum of recent social and legal theory; a thesis
that posits the increasing centrality of law can be attributed to such
diverse figures as Weber (1954), Poulantzas (1978), Dworkin (1986) and
Luhmann (1985), to ame only a few. The diversity of the accounts
that attribute increasing significance to law reveal the radical revisionism
that typifies Foucault's work.

Foucault's imperative conception of law


It is in this light that we now criticise Foucault's general equation of
law with pre-modern forms of power. His conception of law as the
commands of a sovereign backed by sanctions imposed on the bodies
of the transgressors corresponds to a somewhat simplistic, if albeit
common, view of law which equates 'law' with the punitive forms of
criminal law. He captures this imagery in his now famous description
in the opening pages of Discipline and Punish of the fate of the regicide
Damiens whose body is torn apart in slow and painful stages. Crimes
were literally conceived as offenees against the sovereign. The problem
is that Foucault implies from the spectacular and atypical offence of
regicide that this is all there was to law in the classical era, the period
of the formation of the European nation-states. It is significant that
Foucault entirely fails to consider the much more fundamental process
involving the elaboration and systematisation of the 'everyday' property
59

60

Foucault and Law

offences which took place during this period. This neglect of the core
economic offences parallels his more general lack of attention to
economic relations. Similar charges of omission and oversimpliflcation
can be made against his suggestion of a leap from torture to the rise
of incarceration; Foucault neglects the long process of elaboration of
the criminal trial and procedure (Langbein 1977; Minson 1985: 83-90).
The equation of law with commands tends to reinforce the commonplace reduction of law to criminal law. While criminal law lends
itself to being viewed as orders backed by threats this has only ever been
one of the faces of law. In partial defence of Foucault it should be noted
that the dominant tradition of legal theory in the English-speaking
tradition focused on exactly the same characterisation of law. John
Austin, whose influence lasted into the mid twentieth century, defined
law in just this way, as commands of the sovereign backed by the threat
of sanctions (Austin 1955). The other faces of law which, in so far as
one can safely quantify law, make up its great bulk of provisions
concern the detail of economic and kinship relations and the distribution of social authority. Foucault's conception of law entirely
ignores, eliminates, suppresses all of this as well as the great mass of
criminal law and what has so misleadingly come to be called 'prvate
law'.
This is exactly the point that H.L.A. Hart so famously made against
John Austin in The Concept o f Law (Hart 1961); an imperative conception
of law simply omits too much. In addition it also imports a dangerously
oversimplified history of law, one which views the development of law
as exclusively the consequence of the centralisation of power through
the monopolisation of the means of organised violence in the institution of the monarchical state. Again this view corresponds to a
certain commonsense view of legal history. It is a view which is not
entirely false; there is an important link between state formation and
the expansin of state-law, but again it tells only a part of the story.
The simple conclusin is that working, as he does, with such an
inadequate conception of law it is predictable that many of his pronouncements about law contribute little to an investigation into the
part played by law in the history of the changing forms of power and
government.
Foucault's derivation of law from monarchical power eliminates a
more adequate history of law as emanating from dispersed sites of royal
power, popular self-regulation, customary rights, competing specialised
jurisdictions (ecclesiastical, guild, commercial, etc.), local and regional
autonomies, and other forms of law. It was within this reality that royal
power, reaching its zenith in the absolutist state, fought a never ending
and never entirely successful battle to subdue and unify. The equation
of law with negative proscription involves the acceptance of an ideological conception that came to form the conventional view of the

Critique o f Foucault's Expulsin ofLaw

61

monolithic unity of state and law; a view that, paradoxically, Foucault


is prepared to accept in launching his own critique of the presumption
of a monolithic state power.

Sovereignty and rights in monarchical and liberal


states
Foucault relies heavily on a rather primitive equation of sovereignty
and absolutism. His conception is constructed from a literal connection
between political sovereignty and juridical sovereignty; the medieval
king was the sovereign.1 As Habermas comments, Foucault leaves the
'ungrounded impression that the bourgeois constitutional state is a dysfunctional relie from the period of absolutism' (Habermas 1987a: 290).
However, Foucault makes an important point when he draws attention
to the persistence of the discourses of sovereignty which are captured
in his stylish aphorism about our failure to cut off the king's head quoted
above (HoS 1978: 88-9). The key issue is whether or not the modern
discourses of sovereignty are so heavily imprinted with the legacy of
absolutism that modern forms of sovereignty are unable to overcome
these origins. More concretely the issue is whether the modern
discourses of popular or democratic sovereignty can be anything other
than a barely disguised form of absolutism. It is worth recalling
Foucault's formulation of the issue: the constitutionalism of the
modern period involves 'the establishment of an explicit, coded and
formally egalitarian juridical framework, made possible by the organisation of a parliamentary, representative regime' (D&P 1977: 222). This
juridical form involved a system of rights that are, in principie,
democratic. However, and here is the key point, this constitutional
edifice only serves to mask the
tiny, everyday, physical mechanisms, by all those systems of micropower that are essentially non-egalitarian and asymmetrical that we
cali the disciplines... The real, corporal disciplines constituted the
foundation of the formal, juridical liberties. (D&P 1977: 222)
There are two aspeets to Foucault's critique of constitutionalism. The
first is that sovereignty remains a centralised power to command that
is more or less impervious to the democratic discourses within which
it is located. For example, the more or less rapid succession of the French
Revolution by the Napoleonic monarchies or the more recent tendency
of the major western democracies towards presidential rule with
seriously weakened representative assemblies or parliaments provide
the kind of evidence that might support this thesis of the persistence
of classical sovereignty. The second strand of his critique treats con-

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Foucault and Law

stitutionalism as a largely ideologicaldevice; it purports to describe the


location of power and control, while in fact the distinctively modern
forms of domination are actually constructed on the basis of the less
visible but pervasive disciplines.
We are confronted with one of the most fundamental questions of
our epoch. Put in its simplest form, it is true that the modern constitutional democracies have rarely provided government for the people,
and have never been government by the people. On the other hand
the democratic form is more than a mask, it provides very real and
tangible restraints on the exercise of power; but there can be no doubt
that representative democracy - even at its worst and most corrupt is a marked improvement over the absolute monarchies of the
eighteenth century. Modern democracy and constitutionalism has to
be approached as a dilemma, that is, with a genuine doubt about its
achievements and its potential for realising participatory democracy.
The deficiency in Foucault is not that he problematises constitutional
democracy, but that his answer comes down so unambiguously on one
side of the dilemma. The side of the paradox which Foucault omits is
the extent to which the new forms of disciplinary power have already
or can potentially become subject to processes of legal rights and legal
regulation.
Foucault's linkage of law and sovereignty as a pre-modern form
appears counter-intuitive since, on the face of it, the most significant
forms of post-absolutist government seem to place heavy reliance on
such features as 'the rule of law', 'the separation of powers' and other
distinctively legal or constitutional features. This has led some commentators to offer an interpretation of Foucault which seeks to acquit
him of any general equation of law and absolutism. Although the detail
of their argument differs, Franfois Ewald (1990) and Jerry Palmer and
Frank Pearce (1983) draw a distinction between law' and 'juridical' such
that discipline is not counterposed to 'law', but to the 'juridical' or to
the neologism which Foucault introduces, the 'juridico-discursive'.
The point that Foucault makes is that power acts by 'laying down the
law', that is, through acts of discourse that 'speak' the rule (henee the
'discursive' dimensin of his concept 'juridico-discursive') (HoS 1978:
83). Thus for Ewald and Palmer/Pearce, it is this discursive form that
links law with sovereignty. We do not find this argument persuasive
because, both ancient and modern, law has exhibited these discursive
characteristics, for example, by the use of abstract 'legal subjects'.
While the form of legal discourse is of undoubted significance, these
features do not serve any useful role in distinguishing traditional and
^'''modern forms of law. Our suggestion is not only simpler, but more
direct and to the point; it is to recognise that the strict association which
Foucault makes between sovereignty and law is at best unhelpful and
at worst simply perverse in denying the self-evident truth of the

Critique o f Foucault's Expulsin ofL aw

63

intmate connection between modern forms of power and legal


mechanisms.
The same objection needs to be made with respect to the way in
which Foucault ties legal rights to sovereignty. The serious flaw that
follows directly from his conflation of monarchical 'right' and legal
'rights' is that he treats modern discourses and practices of rights as if
they were nothing more than the repetition of the 'od' discourses of
'right'. Thus, while he refuses the concept ideology, it is precisely
through this 'absent' category that he treats the modern liberal preoccupation with rights as ideological mystification or false
consciousness. However, we cannot simply reverse Foucault and
assume that all the modern discourses of rights provide a satisfactory
description of actual restraints on power. We suggest that legal rights
always exist in tensin with the exercise of govemmental power.
Nothing guarantees that rights operate to constrain the exercise of
power. It is merely that they provide a significant form of and forum
for public argument. Litigation in courts of law that invokes rights to
restrain govemmental power is but the most obvious example. The fleld
of the politics of rights also plays itself out in the wider field of public
political controversies which occur in public arenas such as parliaments
and the media. For example, Habermas provides a very important
way of addressing such issues when he suggests that the existence of
welfare rights exhibits an important paradox; on the one hand they
hold out the legal means for securing the interests of welfare claimants
while they can operate in such a way as to render claimants as powerless
recipients of a paralysing paternalism (Habermas 1987b: 290-1).
It is not necessary to hold illusions that rights always secure the
promises they hold out; that, for example, pay equity legislation
guarantees equal pay for women. But what we might cali 'realism
about rights' or a healthy scepticism should not give rise to a denial
of any potential political valu to tactics that seek to invoke rights
against the incursions of disciplinary power and to advance or expand
new rights. We think that Foucault is wrong in suggesting that the
politics of rights leads only into a 'blind alley':
it is not through recourse to sovereignty against discipline that the
effects of disciplinary power can be limited, because sovereignty and
disciplinary mechanisms are two absolutely integral constituents of
the general mechanism of power in our society. (TL 1980: 108)
The odd feature about this formulation is that while elsewhere he distinguishes sovereignty and discipline as historically distinctmodes of
power, he now asserts that they are 'integral constituents'. The political
implications of this position bear the imprint of an earlier phase
during which, after 1968, he moved cise to the Maoist student

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Foucault and Law

radicals. By 1972 he distinguishes himself from their political demands.


It is, however, significant that he does so by adopting a position that
is, if anything, to the 'left' of Maoism.2 At the height of the post-1968
passions the Maoists called for the organisation of popular or people's
courts to try the crimes of the powerful. Foucault disagrees with this
demand, but he does so on the essentially anarchist grounds that any
reliance on the form of the court must ensnare popular justice with
features characteristic of bourgeois state institutions (P/K 1980: 1-36),
in particular institutionalisation.
At the very end of the 'Two Lectures' he advanees an alternative to
reliance on sovereignty and the discourse of rights, namely the devel
opment of a 'non-disciplinary form of power':
it is not towards the ancient right of sovereignty that one should tum,
but towards the possibility of a new form o f right, one which must
indeed be anti-disciplinarian, but at the same time liberated from the
principie of sovereignty. (TL 1980: 108; emphasis added)
Unfortunately, and possibly significantly, he says nothing about what
this 'new form of right' might be. or does he ever return to explore
this idea (Miller 1993: 292-3).
It may be too harsh to say that he never returns to this topic. Late
in his work he did return to grapple with issues thattouch on this range
of issues, when he became interested in the distinctive characteristics
of liberal government (Gordon 1991:14-41). Foucault's remarks on what
Colin Gordon helpfully calis 'real liberalism' are difficult to access
because they are scattered and, in the main, drawn from lectures of
which there is yet to be authorised publication. In his scattered
comments Foucault is concerned to flesh out his earlier thoughts
about the emergence of an expanded conception of plice and its association with projects of 'population' concerning the numbers, health
and prosperity of people who, in the early modern towns, were
beginning to secure some of the attributes of citizenship. This sense of
liberal government is a useful corrective to the equation of liberalism
with state-abstentionism and laissez-faire economics. It does not,
however, go very far towards identifying the characteristics of modern
government or the role of law within it. At best we can view Foucault
as looking in this direction of inquiry, despite the fact that much of
his earlier reflections on law and government had blocked the possi
bility of such inquiry.

Beyond the disciplinary society


There is a deep ambiguity, maybe even a contradiction, between
Foucault's stress on the productivity of power and his bleak imagery

Critique o f Foucault's Expulsin ofLaw

65

of an oppressive 'disciplinary society' in which the individual 'finds


himself caught in a punishable, punishing universality' (D&P 1977:178).
This ambiguity is echoed in his stress on the negative, prohibitive visage
of law and the negative productivity of disciplinary power. At the
heart of Foucault's expulsin of law lies his concern, manifest in all his
interventions about power, to identify the emergence of distinctively
new forms of power that characterise modernity. His account of the
transition to modernity posits a series of displacements, starting in the
seventeenth century. He assumes that centralised monarchical power
was Consolidated during the course of the eighteenth century such that
by the second half of the nineteenth century we find in place a distinctive new form of power, disciplinary power. In contrast to the
unitary form of state power, this disciplinary power is constituted
through the play and interplay of a plurality of disciplines.
In charting the rise of disciplinary society Foucault employs a tactic
that is characteristic of much of his work. In order to clear the space
for a new thesis he displaces or contradicts the existing common
sense; a strategy epitomised in his rejection of the 'repressive hypothesis'
in the history of sexuality (HoS 1978: 45ff). It is in this context that
we should understand the way in which he counterposes disciplinary
power to juridical power. Foucault describes a new type of power, one
which cannot be encompassed within the discourses of sovereignty.
Disciplinary power lies outside sovereignty and thus does not depend
on the centralised power of the state. It is in this sense that he describes
the disciplines as being a 'counter-law' which operates 'on the underside
of law' (D&P 1977:223).
It is from a concern to highlight the distinctiveness and novelty of
the disciplines that Foucault is led to oppose them to law. But it needs
to be firmly insisted that, contrary to Foucault, disciplinary power is
not opposed to law, but rather that law has been a primary agent of
the advance of new modalities of power, law constitutes distinctive
features of their mode of operation. This is not the place to attempt a
history of the link between law and the disciplines, but some features
can be indicated. To take the important example of labour discipline,
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there was a complex interaction between the use of criminal law in the form of vagrancy laws
and anti-trade unin laws which coexisted with the abstentionist
legal endorsement of the patriarchal powers of 'the masters'. During
the nineteenth century the disciplinary powers of employers were
reinf orced through the imposition of restraints on some of the cruder
forms of labour discipline, such as the truck system. The twentieth
century has seen the growth of juridiflcation through the proceduralisation of work discipline that operates alongside the Taylorist
economic devices, such as the piece-work system, regulating the
intensity and quality of work-activity. At every stage in the complex

66

Foucault and Law

history of the regulation of labour, legal mechanisms and devices


have operated alongside the disciplinary 'counter-law' or 'underside of
law' that Foucault highlights (D&P 1977: 223).
Now that we have articulated a general criticism of Foucault's
treatment of law and the opposition between law and discipline we can
move on to consider some other important features of his treatment
of law. While Foucault never retracts his opposition of discipline and
law, he develops a number of strands which go some way toward the
presentation of a more sophisticated view of the relationship between
law and modernity. To these strands we now turn our attention.
There is no doubt that he makes an important point in proposing
that regulation is not and never has been synonymous with or bounded
by law. Yet he misses the more important point that state law is
always involved with, if not preoccupied with, the task of either
exercising control over or exempting from control the different forms
of disciplinary regulation. For example, while historically law ceded
family discipline to the patriarchal father, this site has more recently
become a major field of regulatory contestation. A more adequate
account starts from the idea that the whole field of social regulation
involves an ongoing process of expansin and contraction of the sites
of regulation and the advance or withdrawal of the different regulatory
techniques. A more persuasive response to Foucault's account of law
in late modernity suggests that the trajectory of law is far more complex
than he is prepared to admit. A more adequate account needs to stress
a persistent increase in the range, scope and detail of legal intervention that produces a general movement towards an expanding
legalisation and juridification of social life. It is within this framework
that the issue of the role of law, of its advances and retreats and the
changes in its active forms, can be more rigorously posed than is
allowed by Foucault's counterposing of law and discipline.
One fruitful dimensin is Foucault's undeveloped suggestion that law
functions increasingly as a 'norm'. Fran^ois Ewald, as we have seen,
provides an examination and extensin of Foucault's thesis about
this 'normativisation' of law (Ewald 1990:138-61). The norm is to be
distinguished from the rule; norms identify general standards, not in
the sense of 'principies' or meta-rules, as used by Dworkin, but rather
as a set of standards; perhaps one way of grasping this idea is to extend
Foucault's own notion of a discursive formation, to say that what
Ewald suggests is a 'normative formation'. Ewald illustrates this idea
by exploring the popular contemporary theme that late modernity is
characterised by the rise of the risk or insurance principie (Ewald
1991; O'Malley 1991, 1992; Simn 1987). Law enforcement authorities are no longer able to provide protection against, for example,
petty housebreaking and vehicle theft, with the result that we have
witnessed the phenomenon of insurance companies insisting on the

Critique o f Foucault's Expulsin ofL aw

67

installation of alarm systems in private homes as a condition of issuing


or renewing insurance policies. The implication we are forced to accept
is that housebreakers do not get apprehended, and that we must rely
on monetary compensation via insurance claims. This process is, we
suggest, not to be understood as an advancing normativisation of
law, but rather as the emergence of a shifting 'limit of law' that
involves a significant expansin of contractualism. The general evidence
that Ewald advances is consistent with the element in Foucault that
seems to suggest a 'displacement' of law. But Ewald's account fails to
add either substance to or confirmation of a thesis about the advance
of the 'norm'. Ewald may well succeed in capturing Foucault's intention,
but if he does then he reveis the deficiency in the normativisation
thesis. The contention that we are witnessing a pervasive enlargement of the insurance principie points not to a change in either the
form or content of law but rather to a development that far from
displacing law, serves both to transform and to expand its reach.
Ewald provides an important instance of the contention that legal
regulation cannot and should not be examined in isolationbut through
its complex interconnection with other regulatory techniques.
Legal regulation becomes more and more deeply involved as one
component of the detailed governance of many forms of social relations
and institutions. It acquires an increasingly particularistic character
laying down detailed rules and procedures for a host of specialised areas
of activity, for example in detailed provisions concerning welfare entitlements, construction standards, product safety, credit transactions,
and so on. It should be noted that this expansin of lawis significantly
associated with trends toward greater 'proceduralisation' which, rather
than setting positive rules to control activities, lays down procedures
for how decisions are to be taken, for example specifying what interests
are to be consulted. Habermas has recently gone so far as to suggest that
proceduralisation is the most significant potential of law in contemporary conditions (Habermas 1993). Alongside these developments is
the complex phenomenon of the advancing constitutionalisation of
citizenship expressed in many and varied extensions of both the forms
and types of entrenched rights that go far beyond the classical political
and property rights of the constitutionalism of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries (Marshall 1963; Somers 1993). Once we abandon
Foucault's narrow conception of law as a system of commands or prohibitions we are able to discover not a separation or distance between
discipline, normalisation and law, but rather an interplay or even
interpenetration of law, normalisation and discipline. It then becomes
possible to insert some substance into his undeveloped suggestion about
'the triangle' of sovereignty-discipline-government (G 1979: 18-19).
For Foucault and Ewald the articulation of a norm is the by-product
of the routinisation of the normalisation process. The norm itself has

68

Foucault and Law

no history. It is perhaps for this reason that Foucault ignores the


normative content of legal rules; he remains content to treat them as
negative prohibitions. Given the complex trajectory of normative
conceptions of 'responsibility', 'guilt', 'fault', and the whole battery of
legal concepts and their cise association with criminal procedure
and modes of proof, it seems almost perverse that Foucault should
ignore the normalisation of law that occurs in what is probably cise
historical association with the rise of disciplinary normalisation.
Foucault simply takes no account of the internal and substantive
aspects of the development of legal thought (Habermas 1987a: 289).
Perhaps this line of criticism should be made more severe by noting
how strange it is that Foucault's perceptive analysis of the specialised
professional discourses is never brought to bear on legal discourses and
their surrounding procedures and practices.
Foucault's thesis concerning the rise of normalisation as a new form
of power should not be allowed to obscure the long history of nor
malisation that predates the rise of the modern state. In pre-modern
society wide arenas of conduct were subject to strict surveillance,
discipline and legal control through the regulation of consumption and
the ordering of appearance; these regulatory mechanisms were subsequently abandoned or defeated, but new sites of normalisation became
the subject of contestation (Hunt 1994). These interventions attest to
the pervasive role of normalisation and discipline in pre-modern
society and an awareness of these interventions emerge in Foucault's
late reflections on liberal government (G 1979; O&S 1981). Normali
sation, discipline and regulation are not new and, of course, Foucault
knows this perfectly well, but in the search for the distinctive novelty
of the modern he tends to obscure our visin of the regulated pasts.
The really interesting questions that need to be posed concern the
shifts and transformations marking the changes that characterise the
genuinely novel mechanisms Foucault has done so much to chart. These
issues provide fertile avenues for research because they involve complex
articulations of self-control, confessional techniques, legal regulation
and disciplinary processes. As well, significantly, these shifts involve
different modalities of the participation of law in these processes.
Foucault's overemphasis on the novelty of disciplinary and normalising power also creates the risk of undermining the significance of his
own account of modernity. While he frequently returns to suggestive
ideas about modernity understood as manifesting the reconstitution
of elements already in place and developing interstitially in the od
order, his tendency to succumb to the 'big sweep', epitomised by his
counterposing of law-sovereignty to discipline-normalisation, does
much to undermine this potential.
Perhaps the central deficiency that permeates Foucault's treatment
of discipline is the lack of any explanatory mechanism whereby the

Critique o f Foucaults Expulsin ofLaw

69

dispersed and plural 'disciplines' are aggregatedinto his pessimistic and


negative utopia of the Gulagwhich is 'disciplinary society'. To identify
such a strategic unification suggests the existence of some far-sighted
and malevolent 'ruling class', but this Foucault explicitly rejects as one
of the major grounds for his refusal of Marxism. Yet without some
mechanisms of unification or aggregation the dramaticimagery of the
disciplinary society is undermined. The resort to this tactic on Foucault's
part is a manifestation of the problems that are inherent in his general
thesis of 'strategy without strategists'. It is only by invoking a globalised
conception, the disciplinary society, that he is able to sustain the idea
of the displacement of the law-sovereignty complex. But this globalisation comes into conflict with his pervasive and forceful insistence
on the dispersal of the sites of power and the plurality of the disciplines.
Do the modern disciplines and normalising practices have any unity?
More importantly, if so, where does this unity come from? How are the
mechanisms of normalisation orchestrated?
Foucault attempts to resolve this difficulty by an inspired but
ultimately unsatisfactory move. He insinuates unification by positing
a unifying mechanism whose manifestation takes two well-known
forms - the 'gaze' and the Panopticon. Both of these devices are sig
nificant in that they imply a process of unification or centralisation of
diverse practices without the need to posit a unifying agent. In Discipline
and Punish the metaphor of the Panopticon plays this role of imposing
unity in that he treats the Panopticon as the essence of modern dis
ciplinary power. This claim lays itself open to two objections. The first
is the sociological challenge that whatever significance we might be
prepared to accord to the Panopticon (and in passing it may be
suggested that he greatly overemphasises the historical significance of
what was a largely unrealised project),3 there is no evidence to suggest
that the other forms of normalising discipline were motivated by the
same global aspirations. It is similarly apparent that there is no unitary
'gaze'; for example, psychiatrists, social workers and prison guards all
deploy distinct and fragmented gazes.
A second set of difficulties surrounds Foucault's persistent, but
elusive, identification of discipline with surveillance and 'normalisa
tion'. He paints a set of vignettes of the 'discovery' of new sites of
disciplinary intervention. For example, he contends that a moral panic
surrounded the 'discovery' of juvenile masturbation thatbrought into
play a heightened level of surveillance over the bodies of children and
an objectification of sexuality through moralising medical discourses.
His texts are full of the 'discovery' of the multiplication of disciplines
that have their beginnings in 'little places' and that extend their range
of operation. Much of the reason for Foucault's very considerable
influence is that - in the most general and untheorised sense - the
picture he is taken to have painted is of ever-extending and ever more

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Foucault and Law

intrusive mechanisms of power that insert themselves into every nook


and cranny of social and personal life. There is no doubt that this strikes
a chord of intuitive recognition and resentment in the self-consciousness of the late twentieth century. Foucault's sketch of an
expanding disciplinarity shares much with the currently popular
theme of 'juridification' that gives a label to the process through
which there has occurred a steady advance of legal intervention into
ever more spheres of social life.4
Not only does this picture fuel the anti-authoritarianism of the left,
the innumerable projects of escape from modernity, but also the
projects of the escape from the constraints of over-regulation on the
part of neo-liberal conservatives. Now, of course, this storyline is not
new, but Foucault's versin of the undramatic but cumulative impact
of the disciplines connects with contemporary sensibilities. However
much we may empathise with this general orientation, it should not
blind us to the fact that Foucault is far from convincing in establishing the massification of the dispersed disciplines into 'the disciplinary
society'.

Conclusin: the dilemma of freedom


Much of the important period when Foucault's workwas preoccupied
with the question of power is marked by a rather stark segregation
between the pre-modern and the modern; it is this more than anything
else that determined his treatment of law. His final texts, those that
display his uncompleted history of sexuality, mark a shift to a concern
with self-government, the 'techniques of the self', that go a long way
to overcome his earlier schematic separation between the pre-modern
and the modern (HoS 1985a, b). He formulates this issue in terms of
people's engagment in processes through which they constitute their
identity via what he calis 'ethical techniques of the self' that have
developed from antiquity down to the present. If we are to take full
account of the shift of attention that Foucault proposes towards the
micro-physics of power one of its most important implications is that
it disallows any assumption that these dispersed powers form any
kind of unity.
On the contrary the serious pursuit of Foucault's concerns should
lead us to pose a different set of questions. How should we approach
the study of the forms of articulation of the dispersed disciplines? How
are they combined, how are their competitions resolved? It is towards
inquiries of this type that the genealogical method is directed. At first
sight such a stance seems to suggest a move away from law and other
institutionalised mechanisms. But the shift to the focus on government
of the self and to ethics does not announce a retreat to the private realm
or a shift from the social to psychological inquiries. In an important

Critique o f Foucault's Expulsin ofL aw

71

sense it is a return to what, throughout the modern period, has been


the core question of law and legal discourses, namely, the link between
government and freedom. Down this route lies a fruitful line of inquiry
that focuses on the role of both law and state, unnecessarily marginalised
by Foucault, with respect to the coordination and condensation of the
forms of power. The state apparatuses and state law are continuously
driven to pursue projects of the uniflcation of power; the success of these
projects is always partial, limited and incomplete; their failures serve
as impulses to f urther projects of regulation. Law is an ever-present participant in this success and failure of governance. It appears both as the
means of restraining and channelling the projects of governance, yet
at the same time is one of the projects' means of existence.
This approach leads us to pose the question of law as always a
dilemma, the dilemma of government and freedom. But dilemma
does not imply opposition or mere dichotomy. Government is not
opposed to freedom, just as freedom has never been the mere absence
of government. Rather government and freedom pose a dilemma in that
they presuppose the other while at the same time they threaten or
challenge the other. One form in which the dilemmic character of law
manifests itself is with respect to legal rights; rights cannot guarantee
freedom, but freedom cannot be achieved without rights. This dilemma
is never posed by Foucault, but it is one that is consistent with his
concern, in the final stage of his writing, with the conditions for
freedom. The paradox is that Foucault's general line of thought opens
up these inquiries about law while much of his specific treatment of
law seems to exelude them and deny their relevance.

Part Three
Deploying Foucault for a Sociology
of Law as Governance

4
Governance and its Principies

Introduction
Our task in this chapter is straightforward: it is to offer a basic definition
of governance and to elabrate its four principies. Our discussion
covers the complexities of governance such that the reader is prepared
for our new sociology of law as governance. We conclude the chapter
with a brief discussion of one of the central complexities, the extremes
of governance.
We do not spend much energy in our discussion relating our points
directly to Foucault; we do so only occasionally. The Foucaultian
influence on our treatment of governance should be clear from the
preceding chapters. The Foucault who inspires this part of our book is
the Foucault who is interested in government alongside power, the
Foucault who uses the neologism 'governmentality' to capture
the dramatic changes in techniques of government developed in the
western world from the eighteenth century onwards. This may not be
the most popular Foucault, but we take it to be the most rewarding
Foucault for those, like ourselves, interested in new directions for the
sociology of law.
We are inspired not just by Foucault's direct discussion of govern
mentality (G 1979), but also and more importantly by the work of others
heavily influenced by Foucault's work on this notion which is contributing to a distinctive approach. The flavour of this approach is
captured in the collection edited by Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon
and Peter Miller, The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality (1991).
We make reference to several of the essays from this volume. We also
direct the reader occasionally to the work of Nikolas Rose and Peter
Miller (Rose and Miller 1992; Miller and Rose 1990).
We do not deal directly with the notion of governmentality in
building our account of governance. Rather, we use governmentality
as a resource for and background to our account. We offer a sketch of
governmentality here to complement our earlier discussions such that
we allow the reader some insight into the richness of the Foucaultian
work in the area and a brief understanding of our resource pool. Our
sketch is drawn from Foucault's seminal essay (G 1979) and from
various other essays in The Foucault Effect (Burchell 1991).1
75

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Foucault and Law

In simple terms, governmentality is the dramatic expansin in the


scope of government, featuring an increase in the number and size of
the govemmental calculation mechanisms, which began about the
mddle of the eighteenth century and is still continuing. In this way,
governmentality is about the growth of modern government and the
growth of modern bureaucracies. As Gordon (1991) recognises, this is
the moment where Foucault meets Weber.
This simple definition is useful up to a point but it does not capture
enough of the subtlety of Foucault's concept. It does not, for example,
allow us to follow closely Foucault's periodisation. While government
and its mechanisms have indeed boomed from the eighteenth century
onwards,' this period is hardly unique in the history of widespread,
sophisticated govemmental techniques. Ancient Egypt, ancient Greece,
ancient Rome and many examples from both the western and eastern
worlds in the period from the fall of Rome to the middle of the
eighteenth century all mark boom times for just such government; all
these examples could be regarded as instances of governmentality
were we to use only this simple definition.
To enhance this simple definition such that the nuances of Foucault's
governmentality are more easily recognised, we suggest a series of
interconnected definitions around the following themes: the emergence
of the reason of state; the emergence of the problem of population; the
birth of modern political economy; the move towards liberal securitisation; and the emergence of the human sciences as new mechanisms
of calculation.
From the sixteenth century on, a variety of doctrines around raison
d'tat began to emerge; a series of doctrines which understood the
operation of the state according to principies which were internal to
the state itself and which had their own autonomy. Principies of
government were no longer transcendent principies of an order of things
guaranteed by God. Instead, the correct principies for the organisation
of the state came to be seen as immanent; the strength, economic and
military, of the state itself became the goal of, and justification for, state
action. This reorganisation of knowledge had the consequence of
creating a new set of problems for governments. Governments now had
to decipher the mystery of the state and calclate the correct principies
for its ordering.
One of the ways in which these new problems were addressed was
in relation to population. For Foucault, the concept of population
allowed the art of government to overcome the obstacle created by the
emergence of the reason of state. Government came to be a means to
an end in relation to population concerns: how to guarantee the
health, wealth, happiness, longevity, and so on, of the population; a
whole series of strategies, which elsewhere Foucault has termed biopower or bio-politics, sought practical answers to such questions.

Governance and its Principies

77

A new Science arse which took this new entity as its object:
population became the proper concern of political economy. By
addressing population, governments were able to target each individual,
as a part of the population; the family as the unit of analysis of the
nation was now clearly insufficient. The regularities of the population,
in terms of mortality rates, epidemics, and so forth, could not be
understood as part of the economy of the family (the oeconomy) and
the new political economy, which gradually replaced this oeconomy,
recognised this. The family was still an important instrument of
government, but it was now secondary to the master concept of
population. The new political economy, which sought to promote the
flow of government between individual, family and state used the
concept of population as the primary means of recasting the art of
government. This Science dealt with the governmental imperatives
which flow between state and individual, taking the family as an
instrument in these strategies, rather than as a model for them.
The emergence of liberalism marked an important transition point
for discourses around the art of government We are especially interested
in the emergence of the liberal idea of a society where the liberty of
individuis was seen as being potentially guaranteed through security.
The reorganisation of government within the constraints of security
can be seen as an elaboration of the theme of the government of
fortune, that is, the management of whatever life or fate delivers. A
whole series of social technologies answered this need to govern
liberty; these include the public welfare mechanisms of the late
nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the modern welfare states
(Burchell 1991; Defert 1991; Ewald 1991).
Finally, a particular series of formal human sciences provided points
of articulation for governmentality: the rational economic man of
economics, the rational autonomous subject of psychology, the
autonomous social of sociology, all emerged at about the same time.
In addition, straddling these sciences, the science of statistics expanded
rapidly: a set of facts about the state was reformulated as a set of very
specific understandings of population; a precise knowledge of birth,
mortality, morbidity, longevity, health, illness, suicide, contributed to
the possibility of installing a new governmental rationality.
This complex of definitions, we arge, allows a firmer grasp of the
elusive theoretical instrument which is governmentality. Using this
complex, Foucault's periodisation is more easily followed. On the one
hand, Foucault points us towards an exponential growth in government,
in the elaboration and extensin of what it means to govern fortune.
n the other hand, he points us towards a series of very specific
historical techniques which are formative of our present.
As we suggested earlier, while our new sociology of law as governance
is primarily Foucaultian in its inspiration and direction, we draw on

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Foucault and Law

other traditions in its formulation. All of these but one are indirect. The
strongest indirect influences are Machiavellian political theory and
Weberian sociology, though there are definitely traces of ethnomethodological sociology and Parsonian sociology to be found as
well. The other tradition which directly influences our proposed new
direction is that provided by the work of Emile Durkheim. This
influence is made clear as we discuss the fourth principie of governance.
The only thing which needs stressing here about our Durkheimian
direction is that we are quite consciously attempting to provoke
interest in the strong connection we see between the Durkheimian
tradition and the emerging Foucaultian governmentality tradition.
Foucault himself is remarkably silent on the possibility of this
connection, as are most of his followers and most post-Foucault writers
in the Durkheimian tradition, though this latter situation may be
changing (Alexander 1988). When one considers Durkheim's pioneering
role in promoting the social as a special area of study on the one
hand and the Foucaultian interest in 'the invention of the social' on
the other, it is hard not to see the connection.

A basic definition of governance


We take governance to be any attempt to control or manage any
known object. A 'known object' is an event, a relationship, an anmate
object, an inanimate object, in fact any phenomenon which human
beings try to control or manage. This definition is in some respects
circular, in that one of our arguments is that objects of governance are
only known through attempts to govern them. We return to this
paradox later.
For now, think of any or all of the following: the weather, a romantic
relationship, an act of a god, the performance of a company, eating,
fighting a war, preventing a war, an apple, a refrigerator. In other words
think of any 'thing', 'object', or 'phenomenon'. Now try to think of
this thing without the existence of thought (not only your own, any
thought at all) about the control or management of that thing, for
example, sheltering from the rain, being happy with a romantic
partner, appeasing a god, making a profit, eating enough, destroying
an enemy, maintaining a peace, apples on trees or in shops, some milk
in the refrigerator. We suggest it is very difficult to do so. We return
to a discussion of this difculty at the end of this chapter where we offer
an answer to the twin questions: is there anything we can know which
is not subject to governance? and can anything be governed completely?
Our definition of governance combines three dictionary definitions: 'government', as in the rule of a nation-state, regin, or municipal
area; 'self-government', as in control of one's own emotions and
behaviour; and 'governor', as in devices fitted to machines to reglate

Governance and its Principies

79

their energy intake and henee control or manage their performance.


When we use the term 'governance' we mean the process informing
these three aspeets, the process of attempting to control or manage a
known object. Sometimes we use the term 'governing' as a substitute
for 'governance'.
When we use 'government' we are talking about the more particular
processes involved in attempting to control or manage a nation-state,
regin or municipal area. When we discuss attempts to control or
manage phenomena which have come to be referred to as aspeets of
'the self', or indeed 'the self 'per se, we use the term 'self-government'
or some clearly marked substitute for it, like 'self-control' or 'selfmanagement'. It should be clear that there is an intimate relationship
between government and self-government, with the former often
attempting to operate via the latter and the latter often taking on the
demands of the former as a matter of course. Governing weaves a
complex web here.
We do not use the term 'governor' in the somewhat archaic sense
given above. We include it as part of our definitional discussion as it
is a wonderful metaphor for a crucial aspect of governance, especially
law as governance, regulating in order to control or manage perfor
mance.

The four principies of governance


In our account governance has four principies. The principies overlap
and intertwine to a considerable extent, but we discuss each one in turn
for ease of presentation.

Principie 1
All instances of governance contain elements of attempt and elements
of incompleteness (which at times may be seen as failure).
For us, social life is characterised by attempts to control or manage all
known objeets, including, crucially, other attempts, and by the fact that
every attempt falls short of complete control or management. This
incompleteness is central to the process of governance whether
complete or total control is explicitly attempted. Where only a small
amount of control is explicitly sought by the social actor(s) involved,
we say the lack of total management is 'incompleteness'. Where an
explicit attempt is made to achieve something like complete control
over a known object, we label the lack of total management 'failure'.2
Consider, first, the governance of unemployment levels by a national
government. Government officials may attempt to control unem
ployment only to the extent of limiting it within current policy

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considerations; for example, unemployment levels of over 10 per cent


have become normal over the last decade, but would have been unacceptable in the 1960s. Even if the government succeeds in this, it
must be said to be incomplete governance of unemployment. If it
cannot achieve even this and unemployment rises, this instance of
governance by government fails. In either case, governance itself
contines. Indeed, incompleteness or failure only serves as an incentive
for new governing efforts.
Consider, secondly, the governance of a love affair by either party
involved. The person concerned may attempt to manage the 'fallingin-love' emotions involved by trying to concntrate on work or going
out with friends. Whether the person limits the amount of distraction
generated by the affair yet contines the affair (incompleteness), 'falls
out of love' by ending the affair yet remains alive and thus eligible for
future affairs (incompleteness), or cannot think about anything but the
'in-loveness' which is the known object (failure), governance itself
contines. Of course, as Foucault hints in his darker moments, death
may provide the only instance of complete governance available
(Miller 1993); we explore the implications of this suggestion later.
Consider, thirdly, the governance of a clean bathroom. Whoever
attempts to control the cleanliness of this bathroom, they are of course
bound to suffer, at best, some dust settling on their room, even if they
lock it for a year (incompleteness) or, at worst, someone walking dirty
shoes into it just as they finish one cleaning session (failure). In any
event, governance contines.
The point of these three examples, as well as illustrating the incom
pleteness of governance, is to emphasise the perpetual character of
governance. Governance does not keep on governing in spite of the
incompleteness (or failure) which is so much a part of it, it keeps on
governing precisely because and in as much as it involves incom
pleteness or failure. In this way incompleteness/failure is primary in
all aspects of social life. That is, it is always more important than
completeness, achievement, or success, despite the fact that many
accounts of social life, collective, institutional (by governments,
families, companies, churches) and individual (self accounts) focus on
completeness, achievement, or success.

Principie 2
Governance involves power (but only in a very particular sense) and
as such involves politics and resistance.
To use a mechanical metaphor, power, forus, is the always-incomplete
technical process by which governance drives the machine of society.
'Power' is a technical term involved in the always-incomplete operation

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81

of a machine. Just as the term 'power' is commonly used to refer to the


technical process by which petrol fuels an incomplete (imperfect)
internal combustin engine for it to (imperfectly) drive a car, or the
technical process by which coal, water or nuclear fission fuels an
incomplete (imperfect) electricity grid to (imperfectly) drive any
number of electrical appliances, so, we suggest, we should think of power
in society. Engines drive cars and electricity drives appliances 'incompletely' or 'imperfectly' in the sense that they do not operate completely
or perfectly, they are not expected to operate perpetually in exactly the
same way, something always goes wrong. The only perpetual aspect of
the process is the perpetual process of keeping the process going, that
is, the perpetual governing. In these examples power is the process
of 'keeping things going'; it is not a 'thing', in the way fuel or elec
tricity is.
We make use of the metaphor of society as a machine in introducing power's role in governance because it allows us to highlight
important features of this role. However, we do not want the metaphor
to get out of hand. Society is not a machine in a simple functional sense.
In this sense, the performance of a machine can be assessed against its
design. Society is not designed. We discuss the complexities of the
notion of society shortly.
So, power is mundanely 'productive' (to use Foucault's term; he
sometimes also calis it 'positive' power), it is the technical process
whereby all aspeets of social life are produced, the process of governance.
'Power' is a summary term for the vast array of governing techniques
which come together in various combinations as governance. To be
completely clear, in portraying power as the process of governance, we
are also portraying it as the techniques which make up this process.
In this way, if we so wish, we can summarise the techniques of
managing a national economy, statistical, monetary and fiscal, which
are used in the governance of the economy as 'national power' or 'state
power' (a substitute term for 'state craft'). Similarly, we can summarise
the techniques of managing the self in love, emotional, physical, conversational, which are used in the governance of a romance as 'personal
power' or 'power over the self' and we can summarise the techniques
of managing a clean bathroom, physical, technological, perhaps conversational, which are used in the governance of clean domestic spaces
as 'household power' or 'domestic power'. Of course some of these uses
of the term 'power' are more common in social and political analysis
than others, but they are all consistent with this Foucaultian governance
approach to power.
In being mundanely productive, power is definitely not spectacularly
'negative', especially not spectacularly conspiratorial. To say power is
the technical process of producing all aspeets of social life, the process
of governance, and to equate this with the process of producing cars

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which move or producing electrical appliances which operate is


precisely to deny that power is the possession of any individual, group,
or organisation which directs the process to its or their own ends (the
defining features of what Foucault calis 'negative' power). While we can
read the process in terms of the advantage/disadvantage of particular
actors at particular times in particular places, as we discuss shortly, to
suggest that these outcomes in fact drive the entire process, makes only
as much sense as saying that the fact some car engines work better than
others drives the process of intemal combustin power (the governance
of the intemal combustin engine), or the fact that some light bulbs
are working while others are not drives the process of electric power
(the governance of electricity). This brings us neatly to questions of
politics and resistance.
'Politics', like 'power', is a summary term. Where 'power' summarises
the processes of the operation of various techniques of governance,
'politics' summarises the processes which have emerged and which
continu to emerge, in myriad form, concerned with the contestation
of power, that is, to be more precise, the contestation of techniques of
governance. We take this understanding of politics to be a careful generalisation nurtured by many years of attention to the details of
instances of governance (by many scholars of governance, from Machiavelli on), not the type of careless generalisation of 'positions' or
'stances' (as in 'to take up a position' or 'to make a stand') so often
associated with the term 'politics'. The politics we are theorising may
or may not involve positions or stances; it does not matter, it is their
technical relation to governance on which we are focusing.
Politics as the contestation of instances of governance is very much
part of the perpetual character of governance. Whatever the known
object being subjected to governance, whether it is a national economy,
a love affair, a clean bathroom, a disease, a piece of fruit, eating, or a
war, one technique of governance is always either being challenged by
another technique or awaiting challenge. We may say techniques are
challenged for not being the most appropriate technique, but the
nature of the challenge - it may be for not being the meanest technique,
the kindest technique, the most liberal, the most conservative, the most
righteous, most wicked, most efficient or most disruptive - is not as
important to our account of governance (though of course it is crucial
to any account of any particular instance of governance) as the fact that
all techniques are always either being challenged or awaiting challenge.
This is the case whether a challenging technique is fully formed, halfbaked, or barely embryonic. It is impossible for a technique of
governance to be without either challenge or potential challenge; it
would not be a technique of governance if it were without either. It
must be remembered that governance always involves the cycle

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83

'attempt at control - incompleteness (failure) - attempt at control incompleteness (failure)', no matter how long the cycle takes.
Consider the governance of a nation's economy and techniques to
do with controlling the money supply (monetarist techniques). These
techniques are constantly being challenged by other techniques to do
with, for instance, controlling demand. The form of the challenge may
be that the monetarist techniques are not the most efficient, not the
most humane, or not the most accurate in terms of the way the
economy works. What is most important for our account is the fact of
their being constantly challenged, that is, the fact that they create
contests over the governance of the nation's economy and thereby
create politics.
To take a less obvious example, consider the self-governance of the
'falling-in-love' emotions of a couple. The persons concerned may
feel that they are engaged in no governance at all, that their emotions
are swamping them, out of control. This is not possible according to
our theory of governance (and recent sociologicalresearch supports us;
see for example Jackson 1993; Duncombe and Marsden 1993). The
parties may well be using this 'let it just happen' technique, but it is
a technique nonetheless. Atanym om entthe alternative technique of
'be more sensible, don't let your emotions run away with you' may
challenge it, for instance. A contest between techniques is always
either happening or about to happen; governance is subject to politics.
We have laid the ground for an account of resistance. Resistance is
a technical component of governance, a component heavily involved
in the fact that governance is always subject to politics. Resistance is
part of the fact that power can only ever make a social machinery run
imperfectly or incompletely.
In Foucault's words, resistance is the 'counter-stroke' to power, a
metaphor with strong technical, machine-like connotations. Power and
resistance are together the governance machine of society, but only in
the sense that together they contribute to the truism that 'things
never quite work', not in the conspiratorial sense that resistance serves
to make power work perfectly.
To reformulate our two previous examples, we can say the challenge
presented by demand-management techniques of economic governance
to the dominance of monetarist techniques is resistance and we can
say that the challenge presented by the 'act sensibly' technique of selfgovemance to the dominance of the 'let it all go' technique is resistance.
We can even say that those individuis, groups and organisations
involved in promoting the challenge of demand-management
techniques to monetarist techniques are involved in resistance (it
would be unusual, though not improper, to describe one 'side' of a
person's 'self' as politically resisting another 'side'). However, this
should not be taken to mean that resistance per se drives governance

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in some conspiratorial sense. To think about politically inspired groups


'bringing down' a system of governing a national economy through
their resistance or to think about 'the system' repressing their resistance
is not for us to think about the central feature of politics or to think
about the central role of politics in governance/power. Politics and
governance operate, as we have described, in a much more technical,
usually much more mundane, fashion than this somewhat romantic
mode of thought suggests. For us, to see political resistance and the
repression of it driving governance makes only as much sense as
seeing a car engine being driven by the small cracks in the pistn shafts
getting together to form a resistance movement and being repressed
by the strokes of the pistons.
None of this is to deny that the politics associated with governance
sometimes feature 'exploitation' and 'repression'. The 'contests' which
are at the heart of our definition of politics can be fierce and bloody,
just as they can be passive and mundane. We have concentrated thus
far on the passive and mundane aspects of the politics of governance
because these are the types of contest which predomnate in the world
according to our theory of governance. As we are, in this part of the
book, promoting a particular type of sociology, it is very important to
us that our underlying picture of society (society driven by governance)
reflects this predominance of passive and mundane politics. It has to
be said that in so doingwe are also providing something of a corrective
to many years of political theory and analysis which has discussed
politics as if it were only about active contestation, especially fierce con
testation, often, but not always, using the metaphor of 'struggle'.
We use the somewhat neutral terms 'advantage' and 'disadvantage'
in describing the outcomes of the contests which are politics. These
terms are appropriate for the full range of outcomes from the passive
to the brutal. For us, political analysis is the process of paying attention
to the details of a contest at a specific time. This last qualification is
crucial; political analysis can only ever be a snapshot of ongoing
processes of contestation. While analysis involves attributing the
status of advantage to one or more actors and disadvantage to others,
this should only ever be taken to be advantage and disadvantage in
regard to a particular contest at a particular time.
If analyses of a contest over a long period continu to see one actor
or group of actors in a situation of disadvantage, it may be reasonable
to understand this long-term disadvantage as structured oppression,
and if analyses of a contest over a long period continu to see one actor
a group of actors in a situation of advantage, it may be reasonable to
understand this long-term advantage as structured exploitation. The
instances when it is reasonable to assess technical advantage or dis
advantage in the above more emotionally charged terms are instances
where the analyst considers that one side has no chance of turning dis-

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85

advantage into advantage in that particular context. This, of course,


is not always a straightforward matter, as anyone will know who tries
to attribute advantage/disadvantage to the parties involved in, say, a
long-running contest over how to govern profit margins between
well-paid airline pilots (employees) and an airline (employer) committed
to cheap airfares and battling to stay afloat. Consider, also, the very longrunning contest between women employees and all employers in
many modern western nations, over how to govern employment
relations. While some analysts suggest that women's achievements in
securing equal opportunity show that disadvantage can be turned
around, others point to the fact that these achievements still apply to
only a minority of women employees as evidence of structured dis
advantage, and they reasonably cali it oppression.
We have no magic solution to this ongoing problem of political
analysis. In concentrating on the technical aspeets of governance, we
are not trying to side-step the difficulties of political analysis, merely
trying to clarify them and provide new tools for tackling them.
One final point about power, politics and resistance concerns the
darker side of resistance we hinted at earlier when we mentioned
Foucault's attitude to death; here our ground is not so well laid. James
Miller's biography of Foucault (1993), especially, provides much food
for thought on this darker side for those, like us, trying to build a Fou
caultian approach to the study of social life. By 'darker side' we
understand something like an imperative to resist. Clearly, we are
here on the terrain sociologists have traditionally called 'the irrational'.
We attempt to map this terrain, or at least acknowledge its role, more
inspired by Durkheim's commitment to include it in his basic account
of society than by Foucault's determination to celebrate it; Miller's
account makes 'determination' an appropriate word.
What does an imperative to resist look like? This is a difficult
question to answer sociologically as so little sociology has been prepared
to examine it. We might direct the reader to the philosophy of
Nietzsche or even the more literary writings of Georges Bataille and leave
it at that. While this would be helpful, it would be to refuse the sociological challenge involved. We take up this challenge in offering the
following brief account of what we understand Foucault to mean,
bolstered by a summary of Jack Katz's fascinating Seductions ofCrim e
(1988).
The imperative to resist is an urge to transgress, an urge to move to
another level of contestation. In this sense, resistance is the dark side
of politics. As we said earlier, contestation is a necessary part of
governance. Our account so far makes this seem a fairly rational
process; rational techniques for governing the economy being
challenged by other techniques, rational techniques for governing
the 'self in love' being challenged by other techniques, the same is true

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for the clean bathroom. In each of our examples the alternative


techniques appear just as rational as those they are challenging.
Perhaps in the 'self in love' example we are giving a slight flavour of
Foucault's darker side of resistance. We can develop this example and
lead it into a discussion of both Foucault's and Katz's interest in the
matter to begin to capture the irrational element involved (probably
'extra-rational' is a more accurate term, but we stick to 'irrational' in
an attempt to remain cise to standard sociological ground).
Consider a situation in which a man in love, who is experiencing
an inner contest, 'inner politics' if you like, along the lines set out
previously, 'Be sensible, control yourself, don't let your emotions get
the better of you' versus 'Let go, let your in-love passions have their
head', suddenly sees the woman who is the object of his in-loveness
in an affectionate embrace with another man. A third, dark side to the
contest of governance suddenly appears, a new and shocking technique
of governance is available: 'Lash out at her, hurt her', perhaps intermingling with 'Lash out at them both, hurt them'. The picture is
instantly less rational. Our man may do nothing (a victory for the
'control yourself' side), he may try to hurt by telling the woman he's
no longer interested in her, he may attempt to hurt by a spray of insults,
he may strike one or both parties, or, in extreme instances, he may kill.
In any case, what is important for our account of governance is that
an imperative to resist the two techniques in contest is produced by
a new, dark technique, which for at least an instant appears the
superior technique, a sort of rationality of irrationality dramatically takes
over the scene of governance.
Foucault's work on the case of Pierre Rivire (I, Pierre Riere 1975)
is an indication of his long-held interest in the imperative to resist. Katz
(1988), inspired more by ethnomethodology and symbolic interactionism than by Foucault, provides a great deal of sociological data on
those moments when the imperative to resist leads to criminal
behaviour. He pays attention to the detail of passion killing, shop-lifting,
'gang' violence, robbery and 'cold-blooded' murder. By concentrating
on the sociological foreground of these instances of governance (rather
than on background factors like class, race and gender, as so much
sociology does), Katz amply demonstrates the forc of this imperative
in these instances, or 'seductions', as he aptly calis them (his book is
subtitled 'Moral and Sensual Attractions in Doing Evil').
Foucault suggests, according to Miller's well-documented account,
that the imperative to resist is a search for freedom from governance
and as we have seen he hints that only death can bring such freedom
(Miller 1993). He also suggests that this imperative drove Foucault's own
transgressive behaviour; henee, his keenness to live out some of the
detail of the Marquis de Sade's bizarre searches for pleasure.

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87

Are we straying too far from a balanced account of governance


here? The reader might well suggest that in dealing with the imperative
to resist, we are dealing only with the governance of the self and only
then with that tiny fraction of instances where the politics of the
governance of the self spills spectacularly into dramatic transgressions. We now complete our account o f the role in governance of the
imperative to resist by broadening our description to the more mundane
aspeets of governance at the centre of our portrayal.
If we move from Foucault and Katz to F.G. Bailey's stimulating The
Tactical Uses ofPassion (1983), we find some data on much less dramatic
but nonetheless effective interventions by the imperative to resist, this
time in cases of university governance involvingeommittees. Here we
see the imperative at work in an organisational setting, not tempting
individuis to violence, but taking committees in directions that no
single member or group of members could have predicted in advance.
This, we suggest, is a fairly common experience in the governance of
organisations. A room full of people of seemingly unifled intent, or at
least similar intent, a unin meeting perhaps, finding themselves
subject to tensions and divisions, sometimes subtle and temporary,
sometimes not, which no one of them would wholly own yet all of them
would collectively recognise as influential on the outeome of their
meeting.
In short, we are drawing attention to the mysterious aspect of the
incompleteness of governance which is so commonly experienced, often
in a 'devilish' guise, whether excitingly or annoyingly so, rather than
in an evil guise, when 'things never quite work': the children misbehaving, the car window being stiff, a romantic liaison not going well,
an unexpected bil arriving, a work meeting producing trivial annoying
tasks. In another register this also includes such things as: a group
turning violent in a pub because someone 'looked at them', a person
shoplifting 'just because the goods were there', and a national
government taking offence at remarks made by a leader from another
nation and instigating military action against the 'offending' nation.

Principie 3
Governance always involves knowledge.
Our theory of governance sees two crucial roles for knowledge.
Knowledge is used to select objeets for governance and knowledge is
used in the actual instances of governance.
In dealing with the first of the two roles, we immediately confront
the paradox that we highlighted at the beginning of this chapter:
while knowledge is used to select objeets for governance, the objeets
of governance are only ever known through governance. We employ

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two theoretical tactics in overcoming the obstacles thrown up by this


paradox: the notion of the 'always-already' and the assertion of the
primacy of governance.
Following Althusser and Foucault, we refuse the necessity of origins
in theorising governance. While our formulations involve objects
which have histories, our concern with the past of these objects is
genealogical, that is, we follow Foucault's method which uses accounts
of the past to disturb the present, to 'render it strange', rather than
exploring the past to discover the origins of the present (Bevis et al
1989). In this way (and this is Althusser's formulad on), the objects w
discuss as objects of governance are 'always-already' there, they have
a past, they may even have beginnings, but they do not have origins
in the sense of a genesis which completely determines their form
(Althusser 1969).
When we speak of an economy being governed, we do not propose
that to govern it, say to bring inflation down, it is necessary to know
its origins. While many facts about the past of this economy may be
known, governance always treats it as always-already there. The origins
of the economy are not important. Inflation can be checked without
knowledge of the origins of the economy from beyond this governance
of it. As we stress, governance is a cycle, 'attempt at control - incom
pleteness (failure) - attempt at control'; it is a cycle without end and
a cycle without origins, for itself and for its objects.
To support this tactic against the effects of 'the paradox of the
known objects of governance' we assert that governance is always
more important in social life than the known objects governed and
henee than the knowledge of objects. This assertion may appear
something like an assertion that the egg comes before the chicken (or
vice versa), but its place in our theory of governance should not be underestimated. Just as we argued earlier that incompleteness/failure is
always more important than completeness, achievement or success,
despite the fact that completeness/success is usually treated as central,
so for us here, governing a known object is always more important than
the knowledge of the object, despite the usually assumed centrality of
knowledge.
When inflation in an economy is subject to governance, or a clean
bathroom, or a romantic relationship, or eating, or any known object,
knowledge of the object does not exist independently of the governing,
before the governing comes along to do its governing; knowledge
does not forc the hand of governance. Rather, we assert that the
reverse is the case.
Governance exists independently of knowledge; it leads to the
knowledge of objects being governed precisely in governing them.
Inflation is only a known object in that it has been and contines to
be subjected to governance. We may eat, love, or fight before we

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89

know about it (while this seems a concession to intuitionism, we


allow it to show that even it does not disturb our argument), but we
do not know about it before we attempt to control or manage it, that
is, before we govern it. Of course, this is easier to grasp with more
abstract objeets, like inflation, than it is with these 'natural' objeets.
Returning to our first role for knowledge in governance, knowledge
used to select objeets, the above discussion may be thought to render
this role marginal. If knowledge is used to select objeets for governance,
yet knowledge is led by governance, are we not saying that governance
is used to select objeets for governance, thereby pushing knowledge
aside? Our answer is 'yes' but 'no'. Yes, in one sense, governance is used
to select objeets for governance, but no, this does not push knowledge
aside.
Just as the process whereby the desire for a clean floor leads to
the floor being cleaned and henee to a clean floor does not render the
process of cleaning trivial, does not lead us seriously to believe that the
desire for a clean floor cleans the floor, so it is with governance and
knowledge. Knowledge actually does the selecting work for governance.
This role for knowledge in governance involves only very basic
governance, what we cali the primary level of governance. This is the
'always-already' level. All objeets of governance, as we discussed above,
are always-already objeets of governance. Knowledge works for
governance in a seamless, invisible process. Knowledge seleets objeets
for governance by posing and answering questions like 'what is an
economy?' (making an economy subject to governance), 'what is a war?'
(making a war subject to governance), 'who am I?' and 'what are these
feelings I am having?' (making a self-in-love subject to governance).
The objeets involved are governed in that the basic acknowledgement
of existence which knowledge performs involves a basic attempt at
control or management.
In line with this primary role for knowledge in flrst-order governance,
we could not know objeets if they were not always-already governed,
we could not be writing about them if they were not. We need say no
more aboutthis primary role for knowledge; it is crucial to governance,
yet its seamlessness means we cannot say more than we have without
turning to the intricacies of metaphysics, which are well beyond the
scope of this book.
It is on the secondary level of governance involved in the second (and
secondary) role we see for knowledge in governance; knowledge is used
in the actual instances of governance and thus the knowledge process
is accessible to sociology. On this level knowledge is used in choosing
and implementing techniques of governance beyond the basic 'acknowl
edgement of existence' technique. This is where sociology must begin
its interest in governance. As we arge in our methodology chapter

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(Chapter 6), this is where sociology must begin to ask 'how?' (not
'why?').
Knowledge is involved in a different way in this second level in the
basic attempt at control or management. Here an acknowledgement
of existence is supplemented by attempts to impose more control or
management: the economy should be slowed, the economy should be
stimulated; the war should be stepped up, the war should be ended;
'I must control my in-love urges', 'I must see my in-loved one'; 'the
bathroom should be cleaned today', 'the bathroom will be fine until
next week'. Here knowledge is being used to select some techniques
of governance over others and to implement the chosen techniques
in the attempts to impose control or management on the objects
concerned.
The knowledge used ranges from very simple, informal knowledge
to very complex, formal knowledge and the range includes knowledge
called rational, within modern social sciences, and knowledge called
irrational knowledge. Each technique of governance may include
some simple, informal (perhaps irrational) knowledge and some
complex, formal (very rational knowledge).
Consider, as a first example, the 'control your in-love emotions'
technique for governing the self in love. This technique is informed
by a combination of: simple, informal knowledge to do with taking care
of the self passed on in 'commonsense' conversations between friends
or between parents and children; 'irrational' knowledge to do with
religin (the necessity to control one's emotions so as not to offend a
god or gods) or superstition (the necessity not to think too much
about the object of one's in-loveness for fear of 'putting them off'); and
complex, formal (very rational) knowledge to do with psychological,
medical, or sociological theories and experiments concerned to
determine scientifically the effects of emotional control on psycho
logical, medical, or social well-being passed on through formal
practitioners' advice, newspaper and magazine articles, or formal educational mechanisms.
Even the governance of an economy, to take a second example,
involves techniques which combine knowledge in a similar way.
Monetarist techniques for governing inflation, for instance, are
informed by a combination of: complex, formal (very rational)
knowledge based on economic theories and models designed to
determine the effects of changes in the money supply on economic wellbeing which is passed on in formal government documents, journal
articles and newspapers; simple, informal knowledge to do with which
policies are likely to find favour with government offlcials or international bankers which is passed on in informal conversations in
hallways and tea-rooms; and, in addition, not a little blind faith that
this is 'how people really are' (sometimes called voodoo economics).

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This is not to rule out the possibility that some techniques of


governance are informed by purely formal knowledge and some by
purely informal, though we contend that the use of such unitary
techniques is very rare, in the modern, western world at least.
Foucault's work is, of course, central to our thinking about this
second role for knowledge in governance. Three closely connected
points need to be stressed in the light of Foucault's direct influence.
First, the knowledge which is used in the actual governing of objects
is always available knowledge. We stress 'available' because Foucault
elaborates the ways some knowledge is made available by the operations
of the institutions involved in instances of governance while other
knowledge is not made available. It is in elaborating the complex
relations between definite institutions and available knowledge that
Foucault's generalisations about the connections between governance
and knowledge are best seen.
Second, Foucault's work details the rise of those formal knowledge
complexes known as the human sciences and traces many of the ways
in which they have come to inform widely used techniques of
governance in the modern world: new knowledge of madness generated
by psychiatry being used in the governance of deviance; new knowledge
of punishment generated by penology and psychology being used in
the governance of nations and regions.
Third, Foucault indicates, an indication taken up strongly by some
of his followers (Hacking 1975, 1990,1991; Rose 1991; Miller and Rose
1990), the importance of statistical knowledge for many modern
techniques of governance. This point is especially relevant to the
government of modern nation-states, but it is not without its
importance for consideration of governance more generally, as we can
show by returning to one of our two previous examples of the
knowledge-governance nexus.
The knowledge which informs the 'control your in-love emotions'
technique for governing the self in love is made available by the
operations of institutions to do with self-control (education, counselling,
newspapers, magazines) and in-loveness (magazines, novis, poetry,
films and televisin programmes). In the late twentieth-century western
world these institutions make this knowledge generally available at the
expense of other knowledge, like sorcery, which is not generally now
available. As we hinted above, this technique is also informed by the
formal human sciences, especially psychology and sexology, but also
biology. This formal knowledge informs this technique even where it
appears to be a 'private' usage (a person 'privately in love'); such is the
reach of the modern human sciences that there is no private space for
thinking about the self beyond their reach (Rose 1990, 1992). It is in
this vein that we can insist that statistics reach even techniques of
governance far removed from the government of modern nation-states

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or regions. The 'control yor in-love emotions' technique, informed


as it is by the human sciences, is indirectly informed by statistics
which both use and are used by the human sciences in maintaining
their importance for governance. While only some people may
undertake statistical calculations about the chances of their attempt to
control their own in-loveness, all thinking about controlling the inlove emotions in the modern world must be informed by some aspeets
of modern psychology, sexology, or biology, however indirectly, which
all rely heavily on statistics in going about their business.

Principie 4
Governance is always social and always works to bind societies
together (which sometimes, ironically, involves social divisin).
In elaborating this principie, we need first to define the terms 'social'
and 'society' (terms which we have used freely thus far). We use both
terms in two related but distinct senses. In each sense we use the two
terms interchangeably, in the standard manner; that is, we use 'social'
as an adjectival form of 'society' (we also use 'the social' as an altemative,
if somewhat more particular, noun form of 'society'). We refer to one
of our distinct senses of 'society' and 'social' as traditional, the other
as Foucaultian.
The traditional sense of 'society' and 'social' is that which pre-exists
individuis in consideration of the collective actions of individuis. This
sense goes back to at least the ancient Greeks, but for sociology it is most
clearly and extremely stated by Durkheim. We say 'extremely' stated
because Durkheim uses 'society' and 'social' as that which pre-exists
individuis in consideration of the collective and individual actions of
individuis. Despite evidence of some qualification by Durkheim on
this extreme proposition (Nisbet 1965: 49-53), we stick to his extreme
form when using the traditional sense of 'society' and 'social'.
In reading Durkheim in this way we make yet another return to
Althusser's notion of the always-already. For us, society (and the
social) is that which always-already pre-exists individuis in consid
eration of their collective and individual actions. In this way, society
is always-already there. There is no point searching for the origins of
society, in this traditional sense, for all one will ever find is society.
Sociology is based on this productive tautology: society is alwaysalready there and the always-already is society. Sociology is the study
of how society is always-already there; that is, to labour the point,
sociology is the study of how - the exact detail of how - society is
society.
The Foucaultian sense of 'society' and 'social', most often presented
by its adherents in the alternative noun form 'the social', stems from

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some of Foucault's work around the notion of governmentality


(Foucault 1979) andfrom some work by some of his followers, especially
Donzelot (Donzelot 1988, 1991). This sense of society or the social
focuses on its 'invention' as a definite category of the government of
nation-states and regions in the nineteenth century and on the devel
opment of this invention in the twentieth century. In this Foucaultian
sense, society is a modern, western phenomenon.
Society or the social is a new conjunction of certain concerns about
populations, their health, their longevity, their education, their
children. These concerns are the targets for new governmental
techniques which we might nowadays summarise in English by the term
'welfare'. The stimulus for the invention and development of this
sense of society was and contines to be some advances in insurance
technology. In line with some developments in probability theory it
became possible to think about, to make definite calculations about,
to make policy about, and to make provision for, the health and
longevity of larger and larger numbers of people. While, obviously, governments were able to think about these concerns before, even to
make policy about them, the devastating new ingredients were the fine
detail of the calculations and, crucially, a device whereby governments could attempt to provide financially for the future of the
population on the basis of these calculations (Hacking 1975; Ewald 1991;
Defert 1991).
This Foucaultian sense of society dovetails with the traditional
sense. The fact that society is always-already there is boosted by the
emergence of a new field of government around 'the social'. From the
late nineteenth century 'society' attracted an enormous amount of
attention, which in turn encouraged much more thinking, talking and
writing about its always-alreadyness. This situation contines as we
approach the end of the twentieth century. While sociology, as we say,
is based on the productive tautology of society as always-already, it owes
its emergence and continuation as a social Science to the 'invention'
of the social.
All instances of governance are social (part of society) in the tradi
tional sense though not in the Foucaultian sense. It will be remembered
that the objeets of governance are always-already known through
governance. In this way governance is always social. In every instance
of governance the object of governance and the techniques of
governance are made available by society, they are always-already
available. Whether it is a self in love being governed or ethnic strife
in eastern Europe or any other object, this is the case.
To work briefly though these two concrete examples, both the self
in love and ethnic strife are always-already available to the actors
involved, they are socially available objeets, they have no existence
beyond society. Whatever techniques of governance are employed in

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these two instances, quiet contemplation to control the emotions, con


versaron with friends, international sanctions against states, warfare,
United Nations negotiations or intervention, they are always-already
available, they are socially available techniques, they have no existence
beyond society.
For the Foucaultian sense of society, of course, only some objects of
governance are available - those invented as part of the invention of
the social, like children's welfare, infant health, and mass literacy - and
only some techniques of governance are made available - those
invented as part of the invention of the social, like child protection
legislation, infant health programmes, and mass schooling (these
techniques were invented in just the same way as inoculation was
invented to control contagious diseases). We can sensibly say, then,
that this principie of governance is more Durkheimian than Fou
caultian. It is in the light of this proposition that we discuss the
second half of this principie of governance: that governance is always
working to bind societies together. Our account draws especially on
Alexander (1988), Collins (1985), Durkheim (1965) and Nisbet (1965).
We make clear at the outset that we do not subscribe to a conservative
functionalist reading of Durkheim. That is, we do not propose that
societies are always-already organised in such a way as to promote social
unity. Rather, as we hinted in our wording of Principie 4 and as we
discuss in more detail later, we believe the binding process involves
separation and divisin. Binding, for us, in being part of governance,
is never complete, it is always provisional and unstable.
While society is always-already there, this does not mean, of itself,
that it is always-already there strongly enough to bind actors into it.
Being always-already there might entail, for example, no more than the
pre-existence of in-loveness and self-identity for the governance of the
self in love or the pre-existence of agonistic ethnicities and national
identities for the governance of ethnic strife, for example, in eastern
Europe; it does not necessarily entail actors being bound to one
another around these pre-existing objects. For actors to be bound
together, whether individuis or organisations, governance has to
work to strengthen the always-alreadyness of society, to add this extra
dimensin of boundedness to the traditional meaning of 'society' and
'social'.
It must be remembered at this point that governance is perpetual (as,
of course, is society) in being always incomplete or failed. So, it must
be realised that governance's work in binding societies together is
always incomplete or failed. Governance in this guise attempts to
recreate social solidarity as each attempt fails or is incomplete. This
incompleteness/failure results from the crucial role played by divisin
and exclusin in those veryprocesses by which the binding is attempted.
Moral and ethical discourses, as we discuss in detail shortly, construct

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'the bad' precisely in discovering and valorising 'the good'. This leads
to the constitution of the separated or excluded 'other'. It is in this sense
that Durkheim speaks of societies needing crime (Durkheim 1964:
72); the privileged norms are reinforced by the reaction against the transgressor. Similarly, Foucault speaks of the importance of dividing
practices which set apart the insane and the sane, the undeserving poor
and the deserving poor (S&P 1982).
Morality, community, Communications, physical structures and
sacred rituals (whether formally religious or not) are mechanisms for
this type of binding social governance pointed to by Durkheim.
Morality is a mechanism of binding social governance in that it
attempts to unify individuis and organisations (churches, companies,
schools) around particular themes of right and wrong. For this account
the content of the morality does not matter. The attempts at binding
may feature Christian morality, pagan morality, criminal morality, or
whatever. What is important is that individuis and organisations are
bound together by them being guided/coerced/encouraged/induced
towards certain ways of doing right and away from certain ways of doing
wrong. What is also important is that the binding never works
completely; at least some individuis and organisations slip through
the nets of morality, for longer or shorter periods.
'Community' is a summary term here for certain techniques of
intimacy, continuity and cohesion. The mechanism of community
operates alongside morality in attempting to unify individuis and
organisations around particular themes of right and wrong. Again, the
content is not what is important, it is the incomplete binding.
Community contributes certain themes to the right/wrong complex,
like themes of place or ethnicity. Henee, local communities or ethnic
communities are particular forms of the community mechanism going
about its (always incomplete) binding work. This mechanism constructs
'others' as different and potentially hostile.
Communications and physical structures also work together in this
Durkheimian picture of social binding. They do their work in different
ways in different societies, depending largely on the number and geographical spread of individuis and/or organisations involved. They
contribute to the morality-community mix in these different ways. In
societies with relatively small numbers of individuis and organisations
(possibly with no or very few organisations, as we have come to know
them in the modern west) spread over a relatively small area, Com
munications devices include immediate verbal communication and
limited forms of stored communication and communication over
distance (which may or may not involve forms of writing). Physical
structures are similarly simple, though religious factors may mean
quite complex physical structures are built. In these types of societies,
sometimes referred to as primitive or simple, Communications and

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physical structures, while their binding work is always incomplete of


course, have less binding work to do than in societies with relatively
greater numbers of individuis and organisations and/or with relatively
greater distances between them.
In these more complex societies Communications devices include a
much greater array of forms of stored communication and communication over distance, as well as immediate verbal Communications.
Some form of writing is always involved; the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries have seen the development of very complex electronic Com
munications devices used for both transmission and storage. Physical
structures are similarly complex as these large numbers of individuis
and organisations give physical form to their housing, working,
recreating and worshipping activities. For the Durkheimian account,
networks of modern cities are the most complex mixes of Communi
cations and physical structures ever developed. It is no surprise, then,
that this account strongly suggests that the binding work of these
mechanisms in these types of societies is so demanding that the
inevitable incompleteness is much more apparent than it is with less
complex societies.
Straddling the four mechanisms of social binding discussed so far and,
in an important sense, informing them all is the mechanism of the
sacred. This mechanism operates by making some objeets or practices
sacred and others profane. The binding is attempted both around the
sacred and against the profane. Formal religions are the most obvious
concrete example of this mechanism, working hard as they do to
make some objeets (churches, totems, statues, bibles) and some practices
(prayer, confession, sacrifice) sacred and other objeets (consumer
goods, pornography) and other practices (gambling, non-procreative
sex) profane. However, in discussing such obvious examples, two
important aspeets of the sacred may be missed. First, even in cases of
formal religin the content of the sacred and the profane is not fixed;
for the purpose of binding social governance it would not matter if,
for instance, the above lists were reversed and a religin made porno
graphy and gambling sacred and churches and prayer profane; what
matters is that the attribution of sacredness and profanity binds indi
viduis and organisations into a society through mechanisms of
unification and separation. Second, the sacred operates across all
spheres of social life, not just formal religin; sports consumption, for
instance, involves making some objeets (teams, flags, bodies) and
some practices (attendance at matches, keeping score) sacred and
other objeets (other teams, other sports) and some practices (missing
matches, being uninterested) profane.
Governance works to bind societies together (remembering, of
course, that it never does so totally or successfully) even in cases
which appear at first glance to be dysfunctional for binding, where

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attempts are made to limit or displace binding mechanisms (antireligious dissent, political revolution). We contend, along Durkheimian
lines, and this, we suggest, is very similar to the Foucaultian point,
already made, that power always involves resistance, that there can be
no genuine anti-govemance activities short of death. There can be only
anti-particular-technique(s)-of-governance activities and therefore no
genuine anti-binding activities short of death. What appear antibinding activities may be anti-particular-binding-techniques (like
religin) but they must involve some alternative binding techniques.
For example, binding may be attempted around wickedness rather than
godliness, around revolution rather than stability, or, as we hinted in
discussing Katz's work, around criminality rather than obedience to the
law. In all cases the mechanism of the sacred still does its work, as do
the other four mechanisms we have outlined.
This Durkheimian line of argumentoften raises the charge of 'functionalism'. As we said, we regard this charge in our case (and Durkheim's
and Foucault's) as misleading. In arguing that there is no escape from
governance (except perhaps in death and certainly in some extreme
instances we discuss shortly in the conclusin to this chapter) we are
not arguing that governance is complete. Quite the reverse. We are not
therefore arguing that governance makes societies function perfectly.
If there is a functionalism involved here, it is no more than the unremarkable claim that societies perpetually reproduce themselves in
some form or another. Perhaps our argument that the incompleteness/failure of governance drives this perpetual reproducing is
remarkable, but itis more dysfunctionalism than itis functionalism.

Condusion
We have defined governance and we have elaborated the four principies
of governance in line with our reading of Foucault's work and in line
with a reading of some of Durkheim's work. We are now ready to tum
to law as a form of governance, to outline the content concerns for our
new sociology of law as governance. One loose end remains to be tied
up in this chapter, concemingthe extremes of governance. As promised,
we approach the extremes of governance by answering the twin
questions, is there anything we can know which is not subject to
governance? and, can anything be governed completely?
The answer is yes, but only if we answer the two questions simultaneously. In other words, the only thing we can know which is not
governed is that which is governed completely. This is notas convoluted
as it may first appear. It suggests a circle of governance. The circle is
not visible as a circle from any point on the circle and it is not possible
to be anywhere but at a point on the circle. However, a hint about the
circle is given, but only at the point where the circle joins. This is easier

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to grasp through an example. This is the only example we are able to


think of and neither of us makes a claim to be able to do more than
think about it. As far as we understand, the ultimate Zen Buddhist
experience is to achieve a sort of nothingness (David-Neel 1977;
Humphreys 1949), a thingness which is not governed. Yet the only way
to achieve this act is through a disciplined practice so intense it equates
to what we regard as complete governance. That which is completely
governed meets that which is not governed.
Of course, another possible example of a thing which is not governed
is death, as we have suggested several times in acknowledging Foucault's
hints. This does not fall within the scope of our twin questions as it
is not something we can know. Perhaps, as some branches of Buddhism
propose, death can be completely governed such that it is an escape
from governance for those who actively achieve a certain type of
death (Rinpoche 1992; Whitton and Fisher 1986), but this possibility
is not explored by Foucault and is outside the scope of this book.

5
Law as Governance

Introduction
Our new sociology of law as governance follows directly the four
principies of governance detailed in the previous chapter. In this
chapter we show that all operations of law are instances of governance
by discussing law in terms of each of these four principies. We thereby
assert that all operations of law are distinctive instances of governance.
What is an 'operation of law'? Needless to say, we are not engaged here
in the time-honoured jurisprudential exercise of deciding 'what is
law'? We need a basic sociological understanding of law in place.
We are working with a modified versin of Weber's famous socio
logical definition of law:
An order will be called law if it is externally guaranteed by the
probability that coercion (physical or psychological), to bring about
conformity or avenge violation, will be applied by a staff of people
holding themselves specially ready for that purpose. (Weber 1954: 5)
We modify and clarify this definition in five related ways. The first
concerns the notion of an order. Here we substitute the word 'operation'.
In this way we stress that law is doing. The slogan for our sociology of
law as governance is 'the law is what the law does'. Our second modification concerns probability as an external guarantee. We understand
by this, following closely our understanding of Foucault's govern
mentality, that a calculation is made about probability by some actor
or other (whether individual or collective) using a definite means of
calculation. This is a crucial aspect of our modified Weberian definition
of law, as we show shortly. Our other three modifications are more
points of clarification.
Third, we read Weber's physical or psychological coercion very
broadly, such that it includes any tendency towards conformity with
an historically received norm or the avengement of a violation of an
historically received norm involved in the calculation(s) being made.
Fourth, following Weber (and here Weber and Durkheim are very
much on the same ground), we understand a 'staff' to include any specifically nominated person or persons (in its broadest legal sense, covering
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organisations as well as individuis), not just modern bureaucratically organised mechanisms. For Weber, of course, it is the specialisation
involved, the 'holding themselves specially ready', whether it is the clan
acting in a blood f eud or the judge sitting in a modern courtroom, which
separates law from custom.
Finally (and we have each elsewhere, separately, made this point,
albeit in different contexts; see Hunt 1992, Wickham 1987) we
understand 'law' as a convenient shorthand term for the diverse
operations of diverse laws. In other words, any time we use 'the law'
or 'law' (singular) we are using it in this way, as a shorthand. We are
especially keen to avoid the tendency to allow the definite article to
signal law as an essence of society; 'the law' is thereby taken to be the
necessary component, or even a necessary component of a society,
something which is essential to its existence, which defines and
organises its existence, in much the same way that crude Marxist
accounts of a society posit 'the economy' as essential or crude liberal
accounts posit 'the individual' as essential. For us, 'law' and 'the law',
while used in singular form as a shorthand, indicate very plural entities,
namely, the varied operations of different laws. Speaking of 'law' or 'the
law' in referring to these diverse operations should be read as no more
essentialist than speaking of 'procedure' or 'the procedure' when
referring to the diverse operations of bureaucracies. Just as one can speak
of bureaucracies following 'procedure' or even 'the procedure' when
referring to the vast array of bureaucratic procedures in operation in
any modern western nation, without invoking the idea that modern
western societies are essentially about 'the procedure', so we speak of
'law' or 'the law' without invoking the idea of the essentialism of law.
So, our working sociological definition of law (using Weber, modified
and clarifled by our Foucaultian/Durkheimian concern with governance)
looks like this:
An operation is called law where it involves a calculation by some
actor or other (individual or collective), using a definite means of cal
culation, towards conformity with an historically received norm or
the avengement of a violation of such a norm, where a staff holding
themselves specially ready for directing the conformity and/or
conducting the avengement is involved.
We conclude this introduction with concrete clarification of this
abstract definition by means of two examples.
All steps involved in the prosecution of a thief (the theft itself, the
investigation, the conviction, the punishment) can be said to be
operations of law in terms of our working definition. For a theft to be
reported (even if only to a friend or family member) some calculation
must be made that a violation of an historically received norm about

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property has occurred. The calculation is deflnitely made by the victim


and probably by the thief; for our definition it is the fact that a cal
culation is made that is important, not who or which body makes it
(though of course this is important for a full analysis of any concrete
instance). In the case of theft, no calculation means no theft (which
holds for all operations of law; no calculation towards conformity or
avengement, no operation of law). The means of calculation involved
may be informal, like the victim deciding how much loss he or she has
suffered and/or the thief deciding how much he or she has gained
and/or both deciding how wrong the theft is and/or the thief deciding
how pleasurable the theft is. The means of calculation may also be
formal, like an insurance company calculating the loss involved and/or
the plice deciding whether a crime has been committed (the plice
in most countries decide in favour of a formal charge only where
property of a certain valu is acquired by certain means; for example
plice rarely consider 'taking-by-finding' money on the Street as theft).
Of course, at some point in the process a calculation must involve a
specially ready staff for directing conformity or conducting avengement
if we are to understand the theft as an operation of law. Even if it is
only that the thief or the victim makes some calculation about any
possible involvement whatsoever by a plice forc, or a court, or a prison
system, or a blood feud dispenser of justice, or a church dispenser of
justice, we can cali the theft an operation of law.
We stress again that the sociology of law as governance needs
evidence of a definite calculation using a definite means of calculation,
whether as informal as thought or discussion based on an informal
training in prevailing morality, or as formal as a legal hearing, before
it can recognise an object of inquiry.
This discussion makes it much easier to recognise the other steps
in our theft example as aspeets of the operation of law. In each of these
steps, investigation, conviction, punishment, recognisable calculations
and definite means of calculation are involved and at least one actor
is involved as a special staff. Investigating a theft may or may not
involve a 'specially ready' forc of investigation, like a plice forc,
or church inquiry, or tribal inquiry, but it must involve calculations,
using a definite means of calculation to do with establishing responsibility or guilt. The prospect of a special event around conviction
and/or punishment means the presence of at least one specially
ready staff actor, no matter how temporary, in the investigative cal
culations.
In those instances where formal conviction is involved the specially
ready staff are most apparent. A court trial, an inquisitorial trial, a tribal
ceremony around the responsible party, all demnstrate the operation
of definite calculation mechanisms by specially ready staff in being
obvious operations of law. This is also the case for instances involving

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formal punishment. Formal conviction sets off formal punishment


whereby specially ready staff make calculations, using definite means
of calculation, whether to do with vengeance, or rehabilitation, or
restoration, or all three, about howto imprison, or execute, or corporally
punish.
Our second example is more mundane, focusing more on the
'directing the conformity' aspect of our definition of law. Those
procedures of a company concerned with proper bookkeeping can
sensibly be termed operations of law, even though they are usually less
dramatic than the operations of law which make up our theft example.
Bookkeeping involves daily calculations by company officials, using a
quite formal means of accounting calculation, towards conformity with
an historically received norm of corporate accountability. This process
is always undertaken with regard to (even if the regard is concerned
to avoid) particular legislation to do with proper reporting of company
performance policed by a variety of officials holding themselves ready
for the purpose, tax auditors, securities regulators.
In this example the pervasiveness of law in the modern era is easy
to see. For us, this is a good example precisely because it is so humdrum.
Law is operating here with all its key features - calculations, definite
means of calculation, historically received norms, specially ready staff
for directing conformity and/or conducting avengement - but without
fanfare. Law is operating as part of the routine practice of daily life, not
as a separate guide to it. Our sociology of law as governance is interested
in all operations of law as instances of governance; it must thrive on
the mundane as well as account for the spectacular.

The four principies of law as governance


Principie 1
All instances of law as governance contain elements of attempt and
elements of incompleteness (which at times may be seen as failure).
Operations of law contain elements of attempt in a very obvious
sense. In line with our sociological definition of law, every instance of
law as governance contains elements of an attempt to achieve
conformity with an historically received norm or an attempt to achieve
the avengement of a violation of an historically received norm.
Law is incomplete just as much as any non-law instance of
governance is incomplete. Law fails sometimes, just as non-law
instances of governance do. Consider, first, the governance via contract
of a business relationship between a component supplier and a man
ufactura (Macaulay 1963). This is an instance of law as governance.

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However, the contract never governs the business relationship


completely. As Macaulay demonstrates, many aspeets of the relation
ship escape governance by contract law, usually and routinely because
the parties to the contract ignore the provisions of the contract and
go about their relationship in ways that make sense to them as regular
actors in this environment but which do not flt the logic of contract
law. This is incompleteness. Of course, as we hinted above, sometimes
one party or the other explicitly seeks the sort of total control of the
environment which the logic of contract law f osters and when this is
not attained takes action against the other party for breach of contract.
On these occasions incompleteness becomes failure.
Consider, secondly, the governance of a passion killing. We saw in
the last chapter that governance is involved in a case like this in terms
of self-government and in terms of the imperative to resist governance.
In thinking the example in terms of the incompleteness/failure of
law as governance we must add several factors. Katzpresents convindng
evidence that passion killers rarely make calculations about the consequences of their action in terms of formal legal mechanisms like
plice, courts and prisons (calculating instead in terms of the
righteousness of their deeds) (1988: Ch 1). We may wonder, then,
whether this is an instance of law as governance at all (remember, no
calculation towards conformity or avengement, no operation of law).
But Katz's evidence also points out that by the same token of righ
teousness, passion killers rarely attempt to hide their action either. This
means of course that formal legal mechanisms like plice, courts and
prisons come into the picture anyway, accompanied by their vast
array of calculation mechanisms and their many calculations. The
passion killing is definitely an instance of law as governance; we
would not know it otherwise.
The very fact that the killer usually neither worries about the formal
legal mechanisms at the time of the killing or attempts to elude
them immediately afterwards is itself evidence of the incompleteness,
even failure, of law as governance in this case. If we regard the objective
of law as governance in cases of passion killings as the prevention of
such killings, any passion killing indicates the failure of law as
governance. Even if we regard the objective of law as governance in
cases of passion killings as vengeance against the killers, any case in
which the killer regards the punishment as a reasonable price to pay
for the righteous act they have committed (and Katz indicates that there
are many such cases) means at least that law as the governance of
passion killings is incomplete.
All instances of law as governance contain elements of incom
pleteness/failure in the sense that the lawis always chasingat least one
objective it cannot catch.

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Principie 2
Law as governance involves power and as such involves politics and
resistance.
As power for us is a technical process by which governance drives the
machine of society, law, for us, is part of this technical process. Law
is a part of power; it helps drive society incompletely or imperfectly.
Law is a part of mundanely productive power, helping power produce
all aspects of social life. Law is neatly tied into the equation whereby
'power' is simply another term for the process of governance. Just as
we can summarise certain govemmental techniques as 'state power',
so we can summarise legal techniques of governance (legal rules, court
procedures, plice procedures) as 'law power' or 'legal power', if we so
wish. We do not urge the use of such a term but we make this point
anyway in an attempt to ensure the reader cannot understand law as
separate from and in the service of some mysterious removed power.
Law is power in the very productive way that law is governance.
In being mundanely productive, law is deflnitely not spectacularly
negative, especially not spectacularly conspiratorial. Law is not the
possession of any individual, group, or organisation which directs
legal processes to its or their own ends. 'Law', as a part of
power/governance, ref ers to the technical processes which produce all
operations of law, as per our definition.
It should be noted that law has become mundanely productive as
part of a historical process which has seen the reduction of its parti
ciparon in the spectacle of power. Historically many forms of power,
military, political and legal, were occasional but spectacular in their
operation. They could descend with sudden and terrifying forc, but
they lacked the capacity for sustained and extensive exercise. As more
extensive mechanisms of power became available, for example by
expansin of state agencies into dispersed localities or by the formation
of plice forces, the spectacular element became increasingly symbolic,
but still relevant. As Douglas Hay's study of eighteenth-century England
shows, the parade of robed judges supported by military squads was
an important demonstration of the symbolic violence of the law (Hay
1975; Spierenburg 1984).
The 'politics of law' is a summary term for the processes which
have emerged and which continu to emerge, in myriad form,
concerned with the contestation of techniques of law as governance.
This is not about takingup positions or stances for or against 'the law'
or some aspect of it. While we arge shortly that analysis of the
politics of law involve assessments of the advantage and/or disad
vantage of particular actors, the idea of taking some general position
in regard to legal politics is not important to us; it is the technical

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relation between legal politics and governance which is of prime


importance.
The politics of laws, as the contestation of laws as governance, is
technically crucial as part of the perpetuating mechanism of law as
governance. Whether law is involved in governing a business rela
tionship, a passion killing, or a marriage, one technique of law as
governance is always either being challenged by another or awaiting
challenge. The form of the challenge - it may be that the dominant
technique is being challenged for being too legalistic, too sloppy, too
harsh, too lenient, etc. - is not as important as the fact that all
techniques are always either being challenged or awaiting challenge,
whether the challenging technique is fully formed, half-baked, or
barely embryonic. The fact that techniques of law as governance are
always either being challenged or awaiting challenge, the fact of the
politics of law, is part of the perpetual cycle 'attempt at control incompleteness (failure) - attempt at control' which has been
identified.
In the governance of business relationships, the longstanding
dominance of contract as a legal technique is always being challenged
by alternative techniques, such as sovereign flat (a single sovereign, like
a king or an emperor, or sovereign body, like a military government,
simply deciding at any time what business relationships should be like)
or statutory regulation under company law statutes. The form of the
challenge may be that the contract technique is too sloppy, or too
restrictive, or too old-fashioned, or some combination of these or
other judgements. The outcome of any challenge may be some sharing
of dominance between contract and one of the challengers (currently
statutory regulation), whether for a short or a long term. What is
most important for our account is the fact of their constant challenge,
that is, the fact that these challenges create contests over the governance
by law of business relationships and thereby create legal politics.
The same can be said for the other two examples mentioned above,
passion killings and marriages. In being governed by law, passion
killings in thewestare currently governed using techniques of modern
policing and the application of modern criminal law. These techniques
are always under challenge by alternative techniques, for example
techniques concerned to achieve more immediate vengeance,
techniques closer to blood feud or even Islamic law than modern
western criminal law. Here the form of the challenge might be that
modern criminal law is too slow and uncertain in seeking vengeance
against passion killers. The outcome might be attempts to speed up the
processes associated with modern criminal law, but whatever, legal
politics is created.
In being governed by law, marriages in many western countries are
currently governed using techniques concerned to ensure equity

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between the partners and with an eye to no-fault divorce, based on irretrievable breakdown, with just divisin of joint property and just
divisin of care and maintenance of any children. These techniques
are always under challenge by alternative techniques, for example
techniques concerned to enforce patriarchal control of families, or to
protect women from violent husbands and/or ensure 'the welfare' of
any children. Here the form of the challenge might be that modern
marriage and divorce law is 'too feminist', or 'too patriarchal', or unrealistic. The outcome might be modified marriage and divorce
procedures, but whatever, legal politics is created, in this case often
bitter, dramatic political contests as well as more mundane passive
contests.
Resistance to law as governance is very much part of the fact that
law can only ever help a social machinery run imperfectly or incompletely. Resistance to law is, like other forms of resistance, a
counter-stroke to power.
We can sensibly speak of the challenge posed by sovereign flat to the
governance of business dealings by contract law as resistance to law as
governance, as we can of the challenge posed by blood feud techniques
to the governance of passion killings by modern western criminal
law and of the challenge posed by patriarchal control to the governance
of marriages by family law. We can even say that those individuis,
groups and organisations involved in promoting these various
challenges are engaged in resistance to the law. This should not be taken
to mean that resistance drives the law in some conspiratorial sense.
'Resistance bringing down the law' or 'the law repressing resistance to
avoid being brought down' are not central themes in our picture of legal
politics. Politics and law operate in a much more technical, usually
much more mundane, fashion than these somewhat romantic for
mulations suggest.
This is not to deny that the politics of law sometimes features
exploitation and repression. At least two of our examples, passion
killing and marriage, are rich with the possibility of fierce and bloody
contests as well as passive and mundane contests. In talking of
outcomes of advantage and disadvantage in discussing the politics of
law as governance, we mean to cover the full range of outcomes from
the mundanely passive to the spectacularly brutal. The contests over
law as governance which make up legal politics can only, we are
arguing, be studied at specific times. Analysis of legal politics involves
a series of snapshots of ongoing contests. Attributions of advantage/disadvantage to the outcomes and actors involved should only ever be
taken as attributions to do with a historically particular contest.
If analyses of the politics of law involved in an ongoing particular
instance are undertaken over a long period of time and continu to
reveal outcomes whereby one actor or group of actors remains in a

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situation of disadvantage, it is reasonable to understand this long-term


disadvantage as structured oppression (even 'brutal oppression'). If such
analyses continu to reveal outcomes whereby one actor or group of
actors remains in a situation of advantage, it is reasonable to understand
this long-term advantage as structured exploitation (even 'brutal
exploitation'). Of course, our caveat from the previous chapter applies:
while we can safely say that those instances when it is reasonable to
assess technical advantage and disadvantage in more emotionally
charged terms are those where the analyst considers that the outcomes
deemed to be in disadvantage or advantage have no chance of being
otherwise in the foreseeable future, such judgements are by no means
easy to make. Political developments have a nasty habit of being
much faster than those analysing them recognise.
To take the examples of passion killings and marriage, we cannot
safely say that analyses of the legal politics involved reveal a clear, longterm advantage or disadvantage in either case. In the case of marriage,
at least in the west, 20 years ago an analysis would have had to reveal
structured oppression of women in the outcomes of the contests
between the dominant techniques of the legal governance of marriage,
especially the provisions for divorce, and alternative techniques
concerned with greater equity for women. But in the last 20 years the
situation has changed enough that any legal political analysis, while
it may still assess patriarchal techniques of governance to be in a
situation of advantage, would have to be uncertain as to whether the
outcome of any contest is a 'long-term' outcome. In the legal politics
of the governance of passion killings, no analysis in the last 50 years,
at least in the western world, could have reasonably attributed longterm advantage or disadvantage to a particular outcome, such has
been the volatility of contests between liberal techniques of rule of law
and more traditional techniques concerned to achieve more immediate
revenge.
It hardly needs saying that the law as governance constantly comes
into contact with the darker side of resistance, what we called in the
last chapter, in trying to capture Foucault on this point, the imperative
to resist. In the last chapter we discussed Katz's account of the irrational
element involved in many crimes. The imperative to resist, as we cali
it, is a key factor in the perpetual incompleteness/failure of the law's
attempt to govern crime.
Sticking with our legal examples used in this chapter, the imperative
to resist plays a role in the legal governance of business relationships,
marriages and, of course, passion killings. We have already seen the way
in which passion killings involve the sudden and dramatic urge to
righteous slaughter on the part of the killer and discussed the impossible
challenge this technique of self-governance throws up to legal
techniques of governing killing. This example is fairly straightfor-

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ward, even in regard to the fact that legal techniques of governance may
prevent killings in 99 per cent of instances when passions rise; 1 per
cent is sufficient to make our point about the role played by the
imperative to resist in the incompleteness/failure of legal governance.
The legal governance of business relationships is far more mundane.
Passions rarely rise to point involved in passion killings. Yet passion
certainly plays a part in contract negotiations and enforcement, though
much more in line with Bailey's The Tactical Uses o f Passion than
Katz's Seductions ofCrime. The imperative to resist is involved in this
example in that mysterious way of 'things never quite working' we
ref erred to in the previous chapter, a meeting going awry in ways that
no single participant anticipates or aims for, components not arriving
on time despite the best procedures, contract negotiations ending up
in court despite goodwill on the part of all parties involved, etc.
The legal governance of marriage is a mix of the mundane and the
spectacular when it comes to the role of the imperative to resist.
Breaches of legal governance by this imperative occur mundanely in
events like inequitable divisin of marital property; irrational urges
whereby one partner mistrusts the other and tries to maintain dignity
via petty battles over who owns what are very common pieces of
evidence that the legal governance of marriage to ensure equity is always
incomplete/failing in the face of the imperative to resist. Sometimes
the irrational urges involved in resisting the legal governance of
marriage spill over into the realm of the spectacular. Violence by one
party against the other, usually the man against the woman, is the result.
This spectacular resistance to governance itself occasionally escalates
as the imperative to resist that legal governance designed to ensure
equitable marriages suddenly becomes the imperative to resist that legal
governance designed to prevent passion killings.

Principie 3
Law as governance always involves knowledge.
As with governance in general, knowledge is used to select objects for
legal governance and knowledge is used in the actual instances of legal
governance. There are some important clarifications and qualifications
necessary as we extend this aspect of our theory to law as governance.
Here again we confront a paradox: that while knowledge is used to select
objects for legal governance, the objects of legal governance are only
ever known through governance. We stress the difference between this
formulation and that we offered for governance in general in the
previous chapter. Here, we are allowingthat objects of legal governance
may be known through non-legal governance. Again, we turn first to

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the Althusserian notion of always-alreadyness to overcome the effects


of this paradox.
Objeets of legal governance, like other objeets of governance, are
'always-already' there, they have a past, possibly with beginnings,
but they do not have origins in the sense of a determining genesis.
When we speak of the legal governance of business relationships,
marriages and passion killings, we do not propose that we, or any actors
involved in this governance, must know the origins of business rela
tionships, marriages and passion killings. While we or they may know
or discover many faets about these objeets, we and they (and here we
can say 'the law' as part of this 'they') treat them as always-already there.
Whether it is theorists like us, plice officers, lawyers, judges, or law
makers is not important; contracts can be managed, divorce proceedings undertaken, prosecutions made against passion killers and any
number of examples formulated without recourse to knowledge of the
origins of objeets beyond their legal governance. Legal governance
involves the eyele 'attempt at control - incompleteness (failure) attempt at control'; it, like governance in general, is a eyele without
end and a eyele without origins.
In overcoming the effects of this paradox, we assert that legal
governance is always more important in social life than the known
objeets governed by law. Governing a known object by law is always
more important for us than the knowledge of the object despite the
usually assumed centrality of knowledge.
At a basic level knowledge works for legal governance in a seamless,
invisible process. Knowledge seleets objeets for legal governance by
invisibly posing and answering questions like, what is a human life?
(allowing legal governance access to passion killings), what is human
economic activity? (allowing legal governance access to business
dealings) and how do humans traditionally partner one another?
(allowing legal governance access to marriage). The objeets involved
are governed in that the basic acknowledgement of existence which
knowledge performs involves a very basic attempt at control or
management.
In line with this primary role for knowledge in legal governance, we
could not know objeets if they were not always-already governed, we
could not be writing about them if they were not. Despite its central
place in our theory of governance, this primary role for knowledge is
not as important for law as governance as it is for governance in
general. While the primary level provides objeets for legal governance
in the manner just described, this level is not as active in legal
governance as it is in governance in general, because the secondary level
comes into play far more quickly in instance of legal governance. It does
this mainly in the distinctive form of 'legal knowledge'.

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On the secondary level, where knowledge is used in the actual


instances of governance, knowledge is used in choosing and implementing techniques of governance beyond thebasic 'acknowledgement
of existence' technique. This is where our new sociology of law as
governance begins to ask, 'how?' (and where, as we hinted above, 'legal
knowledge' becomes a sound general beginning to any answer).
On this secondary level, knowledge is used to impose more control
or management. It involves both simple, definitional legal knowledge
- taking a human life is a public wrong, human economic activity needs
consistent regulation, traditional human partnerships, especially for
the purpose of procreation, include marriage, etc.- and more complex
legal knowledge - the evidence required to prosecute a passion killer
might include a mens rea, contracts covering the supply of component
parts should include clauses about delivery times, a divorce hearing
should involve a notion of irretrievable marriage breakdown. This is
the ground of law as governance. Complex and simple forms of legal
knowledge are used to select some techniques of legal governance
over others and to implement the chosen techniques in the attempts
to impose legal control or management on the object or objects
concerned.
Most legal knowledge involved in law as governance belongs in the
range called rational knowledge, but this is not to deny that irrational
knowledge is also involved. Indeed, we can make the same point we
made in regard to governance in general: each technique of governance
may include some irrational and some rational knowledge.
Consider, as a flrst example, the techniques of investigation used in
prosecuting a passion killer. Some simple legal knowledge, like the
knowledge that passion killing is a crime if successfully prosecuted, is
involved alongside more complex legal knowledge to do with, say,
properly gathering forensic evidence. Both the simple and the complex
legal knowledge here is quite rational, but irrational knowledge to do
with revenge may inform the techniques of investigation at any stage,
weaving its way through the rational knowledge, sometimes supporting
it, sometimes undermining it. As well, or perhaps as part of this
irrational knowledge to do with revenge, knowledge about the role
played by demons or devils in passion killing may informally inform
the techniques of investigation. This knowledge is usually labelled
irrational in modern western legal systems.
Even in more mundane settings, like the legal governance of a
business relationship by contract, techniques of legal governance
combine knowledge in a similar way. The contract technique of legal
governance explicitly involves very rational knowledge to do with
individual maximising behaviour, the behaviour of homo economicus
of liberal theory. But this is not all it involves. Implicitly it also involves
great faith in the possibility of order, which can well be held in the form

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o religious knowledge or even something approaching magic, both of


which are on the irrational end of the spectrum of the sociology of
knowledge. It may also involve (quite sensibly from our point of view)
irrational fear of things going wrong, of some forc or other intervening
to throw spanners into the machinery of contract.
So, while legal knowledge appears super-rational, we are contending
that in its central role in legal governance, it is nearly always a mix of
rational and irrational knowledge.
It is necessary that we rehearse our three connected points about
Foucault's special influence on our thinking about the role of knowledge
in governance specifically in regard to law as governance. First, the
knowledge which is involved in legal governance is always available
knowledge. Second, the knowledge which is predominantly involved
in modern legal governance is very much part of the formal knowledge
groupings known as the human sciences. Third, statistical knowledge
is increasingly important to legal governance.
The knowledge which informs the legal governance of marriage, for
example, is made available by the operations of institutions to do
with human partnerships and human procreation. In the late twentiethcentury western world these institutions include education, counselling,
therapy, family, friendships, peer pressure, church, court (especially
family court), medicine, midwifery, popular health books and magazines
and other popular books and magazines (especially to do with romance,
marriage, child-bearing and child-rearing). These institutions make this
knowledge available to the law for its governance of marriage at the
expense of other knowledge. For instance, it is unlikely that witchcraft
will be available to the law in the late twentieth-century western
world as it goes about governing marriage, though it would be difflcult
to be so certain about the exclusin of astrology. Modern western legal
governance of marriage, in line with the role of the above-mentioned
institutions, is heavily informed by the human sciences. The law is now
dominated in its approach to marriage, by knowledge given to it by
psychology, sociology, sexology (especially as they relate to the
management of 'healthy populations', however that maybe defined),
as well as biology and medical science. Of course, these various human
sciences are heavily indebted to statistics as they go about the production
and promotion of knowledge about human relationships and human
procreation which laws governing marriage cannot resist (the statistics
are central in calculations to do with how a 'healthy population' is
achieved).

Principie 4
Law as governance is always social and always works to bind societies
together (which sometimes, ironically, involves social divisin).

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For law as governance, our two senses of 'social/society' are also


important. In the traditional sense of 'society/social', law is a part of
that which pre-exists individuis in consideration of the collective
actions of individuis. Again, Durkheim is the key figure, supplemented by Althusser's notion of the always-already. The law, as part
of society, always-already pre-exists the individuis, in their collective
and individual actions, who are the subjects of law. Law is always-already
there as part of society. There is no point searching for the origins of
law in society. One can find a past, one can find beginnings, but one
cannot And the origins of law in society, in the sense of a genesis. Our
sociology of law as governance is the study of how - the exact detail
of how - law in society is always-already there.
For our second sense of 'society/social', the Foucaultian sense, law
is a part of governmentality, part of the form of government unique
to the modern world. Law in society in this sense is an invention. It
was invented as a definite category of the government of nation-states
and regions in the nineteenth century and further developed as such
a category throughout the twentieth century. In this Foucaultian
sense, law in society is a modern western phenomenon (though one
which has been exported to non-western nations). This Foucaultian
understanding of law in society is, in important respects, part of the
inspiration for this book, certainly for our formulation of a new
sociology of law as governance.
To continu with our account of this aspect of 'law in society', it is
a relatively new conjunction of concerns about populations, their
longevity, their education, their ethical behaviour, their children, in
short, their 'health', in the broadest sense of the term. The stimulus
for the invention and development of this sense of law in society was
and contines to be some dramatic advances in insurance technology.
In line with some developments in probability theory, it became
possible to think about, to make definite calculations about, to make
policy about, to make provision for, the 'health' of larger and larger
numbers of people and the law became a central part of this process,
a sort of guarantee of its possibility and a part of its execution. While
governments were able to think about these concerns before, even to
make policy about them, and to use the law in so doing, the distinctive new ingredients were the fine detail of the calculations and a device
whereby governments could attempt to provide flnancially for the future
of the population on the basis of these calculations. Law became a
detailed means of both expressing and attempting to implement more
and more detailed policy in line with the new intensive mode of
government. In this way, crucially, law became an arm of calculating
government.
This Foucaultian sense of law in society dovetails with the traditional
sense. The fact that law in society is always-already there is boosted by

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the emergence of a new field of government, with a concomitant


new field of law, around the social. From the late nineteenth century
'society' attracted an enormous amount of new attention which was
accompanied by new attention to 'law in society' which in turn
encouraged much more thinking, talking and writing about its alwaysalreadyness. This situation contines as we approach the end of the
twentieth century. The new fields of law which were made possible by
this new field of government, child protection law, family law, social
security law, workers' compensation law, etc. and, by extensin, as
'society' became a wider field of calculation and concern and as more
intensive governmental techniques became available, such elds as environmental law and new, more intense forms of company law, taxation
law and international law, all now seem 'obvious' and 'natural' as legal
fields. The boom for government has been and contines to be a
boom for law.
All instances of law as governance are social in the traditional sense,
though not in the Foucaultian sense. It will be remembered that the
objeets of law as governance are always-already known through
governance. In this way, law as governance is always social. In any
instances of law as governance, the objeets and the techniques are made
available by society, they are always-already available. Whether it is a
child custody dispute being governed by law or an oil spill, this is the
case. Both the child custody dispute and the oil spill are always-already
available to the actors involved, they are socially available objeets, they
have no existence beyond society. Whatever techniques of law are
applied in these two instances - conciliation, restraining orders, negotiation, prosecution - they are always-already available, they are
socially available techniques, they have no existence beyond society.
For the Foucaultian sense of law in society, only some objeets of law
as governance were initially made available by society - those invented
or modified as part of the invention of the social (such as the dysfunctional child, the threatened environment and the unsaf e workplace)
- and only some techniques of law as governance were initially made
available by society - those invented or modified as part of the
invention of the social (such as compulsory education, safety inspections and environmental standards). Fairly quickly, however, the
objeets and techniques which were only available because of the
invention of the social as a new field of government through law
merged with and modified older objeets and techniques such that now
one cannot sensibly separate the traditional sense of 'law in society'
governance from the Foucaultian sense. Nonetheless, as we turn to the
fact that law as governance is always working to bind societies together,
we can acknowledge that as with governance in general, this principie
is more Durkheimian than Foucaultian.

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While law in society is always-already there, this does not mean, of


itself, that it is always-already there strongly enough to bind actors into
it. Being always-already there might entail, for example, no more
than the pre-existence of the idea that taking a human life is prob
lema tic, for the legal governance of passion killings, or the pre-existence
of the idea of patriarchal arrangements for organising human procreation, for the legal governance of marriage. It does not necessarily entail
actors being bound to one another around these objects. For actors,
whether individuis or organisations, to be bound together, law as
governance has to work to strengthen the always-alreadyness of law
in society, to addthis extra dimensin of boundedness to the traditional
meaning of law in society.
Law as governance is perpetual in being always incomplete or failed.
So, law's part in binding societies together is always incomplete or failed.
In the Durkheimian account of law as a binding mechanism, we can
see law working closely with the mechanisms identifled and discussed
in the previous chapter, morality, community, Communications and
physical structures and sacred rituals.
The law supplements morality in its task of unifying individuis and
organisations around particular themes of right and wrong, like the
theme of the valu of human life. It should be remembered that the
content of the morality does not matter for this account. The law may
support Christian morality, pagan morality, or whatever, to the extent
that it can quite usefully back up the flexible moral code needed to
encourage and/or allow the taking of human life at some times (times
of war, executions, etc.) while condemning it at others. What is
important is that the law helps guide/coerce/encourage/induce indi
viduis towards certain ways of doing right and away from certain ways
of doing wrong, even where flexibility is required, as in the above
example, and this helps to bind them into a society. What is also
important is that the binding never works completely; at least some
individuis and organisations slip through the nets of morality which
the law helps to set, for shorter or longer periods.
The law supplements those techniques of intimacy, continuity and
cohesion which make up 'community', as they operate alongside
morality in attempting to unify individuis and organisations around
themes of right and wrong. For example, the law helps produce com
munities of locality or ethnicity by restricting immigration, criminalising
vagrancy, etc. Here again, the content of law does not matter; it is the
operation which matters. Here again, too, the law never works
completely in supporting community as a binding mechanism; no laws,
not even those associated with apartheid or Nazism, have ever produced
a completely isolated community of locality or ethnicity.
The law helps Communications and physical structures as they
jointly perform their binding work in this Durkheimian picture of social

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binding. The law helps them as they contribute to the moralitycommunity mix in both 'simple' and 'complex' societies. In 'simple'
societies, with relatively small numbers of individuis and organisations
(or possibly no organisations) spread over a relatively small area, the
law helps reglate and control immediate verbal communication (via
taboos on certain words, for example) and any limited forms of stored
communication and communication over distance (via legal recognition of any designated formal communicators, especially in their
capacity as communication storage devices, like storytellers or dancers).
In such societies, the law helps the physical structures side of the
combination it forms with communication by, for example, legally
marking certain structures, particularly religious structures, as special.
While the law-communications-physical structures nexus is never
complete or completely successful in its binding work in these societies,
it has less binding work to do than it does in societies with relatively
greater numbers of individuis and organisations and/or with relatively
greater distances between them.
In these more complex societies, with their much more complex com
munication devices and physical structures, the law aspect of the
law-communications-physical structures nexus still has to enforce
taboos on certain Communications content, to provide formal recognition to designated communicators (telephone companies, universities,
televisin networks, etc.) and to mark certain structures as special
(schools, hospitals, prisons, churches, government offices, business
centres, shopping centres, etc.). But it does m uch more as well. For
example, it regulates and plices ownership systems for communicated
ideas and words, it backs up the taboos on certain communication
content with libel laws and censorship provisions, it regulates competition in Communications industries, it regulates to ensure the
spread of Communications technology, it regulates complex transportation forms and patterns and it regulates the complexities of
modern urban spaces. Little wonder, then, that incompleteness/failure
of law's binding work is more apparent in regard to these mechanisms
in complex societies.

The law's role in the over-arching binding mechanism of the sacred


has already been touched upon. The law is crucial to the project of
marking some objeets and practices as sacred and others as profane.
Law helps in binding individuis and organisations around the sacred
and against the profane. Church law is the most obvious example,
whether Christian, Islamic, Jewish, or whatever. However, as the
sacred operates across all spheres of social life, not just religin, it is
important to note the work the law does in non-religious settings to
reglate the distinction between the sacred and the profane. For
example, law regulates this distinction with regard to the objeets and
practices of the celebration of military achievements and sporting

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achievements, of the provision of medical and educational services and


of the provision of formal government. It is difficult to imagine a
modern western society without law policing the sacredness of war
memorials and rituals, sporting venues and events, hospitals, doctors
and 'proper' health care, schools, teachers, universities and education,
government buildings, parliaments, politicians and public bureaucratic procedures.
Law as governance helps bind societies together, never totally or
completely successfully, even in cases which appear at first glance to
be dysfunctional for binding. Durkheim is famous for this contention,
especially in regard to crime. Of course there can be genuine anti-law
activities where there cannot be genuine anti-govemance activities short
of death. Law has its limits, as we have been at pains to arge, especially
through our Weberian definition of law; the rule of law has to be established and constantly maintained. In this light, it is easy to see that our
account of law as governance, especially in regard to our argument that
law as governance is perpetuated by its incompleteness/failure, might
more accurately be called dysfunctionalism than functionalism.

Condusion
The content of our new sociology of law as governance has been
outlined in terms of the four principies of governance. Our Weberian
definition of law is central to these concerns, in limiting the field for
a sociology of law as governance. Admittedly it is a large field, but it
is a limited field nonetheless. Now that we have a field, we need some
rules for the game. The rules, in the spirit of Durkheim, are rules of soci
ological method. It is to these that we now turn, but with Foucault in
our eyes as much as Durkheim.

6
Method Principies for the Sociology of
Law as Governance

Introduction
Foucault and Durkheim come together in this chapter, but not in the
sense of trying to forc Foucault's genealogy into the framework of
Durkheim's Rules o f Sociological Method. That would not, in our
estimation, be particularly productive, even if possible. Indeed, we
attempt no explication of either theorist's work here. We have done
all the explicating of Foucault's work we are going to do in this book
and explication of Durkheim's work is outside its scope. Rather, we put
Foucault and Durkheim together by giving our Foucaultian project some
Durkheimian methodological spirit; we draw on insights by both
writers in doing this but mainly on Durkheim's insights.
We have discussed the fact that Foucault refuses to be pinned down
on matters of method. We find this fascinating for its philosophical
ramiflcations but decidedly unhelpful for our task of outlining a new
approach to the sociology of law, even though our new approach is
definitely Foucaultian. We offer five explicit principies of method
with the same conviction displayed by Durkheim (and Weber); we are
certain that a strong sociology needs a set of explicit methodological
principies.

The four method principies of the sociology of law


as governance
Principie 1
The sociology of law as governance works to compile social facts in
a genealogical manner.
The sociology of law as governance goes about its business compiling
what Durkheim calis social facts, but compiling them in the manner
of Foucault's genealogy. We deal with the Durkheimian component
of this formulation first (we draw on Durkheim 1964; Carrithers et al
1985; Collins 1985; Nisbet 1965).
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As we saw in the previous chapter, all law as governance is social


governance involving social actors, individuis and organisations
bound into a society. The sociology of law as governance follows
Durkheim in detailing the actions of these actors as social actions, as
'things' which happen through actors interacting socially, that is,
always-already interacting. For Durkheim, sociology is the Science of
these social actions (the French term fait social, usually translated as
'social facts', more literally means 'social doings'). The actions of
actors are never detailed in other than social terms. Phenomena of ten
attributed to non-social (usually individual) realms, phenomena like
motives and beliefs, are always detailed in terms of their social makeup, in terms of their dependence on the always-already interaction of
actors. In this way, supposedly personal phenomena are detailed in
terms of social processes of person formation (a point made most
forcefully by Durkheim's immediate followers, especially Marcel Mauss
(1985)).
Consider the example of abortion law.1 Governing abortion by law
is social governance. All actors involved, women, doctors, plice,
politicians, hospitals and courts, are social actors, that is, are individ
uis and organisations bound into a society. The sociology of law as
governance, in addressing abortion law, details the actions of these
actors - getting pregnant, decidingto terminate a pregnancy, medically
helping the termination, or medically advising against the termination,
investigating an abortion, or making an arrest, or deciding against
making an arrest, helping to frame laws against abortion, or opposing
such laws, or helping to frame laws to allow women access to abortion,
providing the services for a medical termination, prosecuting those
involved in an abortion, or deciding not to prosecute - as social
actions. This is to say, the sociology of law as governance details these
actions as 'things'which happen through actors always-already inter
acting; the possibility of getting pregnant, deciding to terminate,
helping medically to terminate, etc., always-already pre-exist the actual
getting pregnant, deciding to terminate, because actors always-already
interact. The sociology of law as governance is the study of such social
actions. The motives and beliefs of the women, doctors, lawyers,
judges, politicians, plice, hospital employees, involved in abortion,
like all other supposedly 'personal' phenomena, are detailed in terms
of their social make-up, in terms of their dependence on the alwaysalready interaction of actors. The sociology of law as governance
examines the ways in which this always-already interaction makes
possible the beliefs and attitudes that sex is desirable, that pregnancy
is undesirable, that doctors should help terminate pregnancies, that
doctors should not help terminate pregnancies, that plice should
prosecute, that plice should keep clear, that anti-abortion laws are
necessary, that they are unnecessary, that special laws are necessary to

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faciltate abortion, etc. This brings us neatly to the Foucaultian


component of this methodological principie.
We discussed Foucault's notion of genealogy on a couple of previous
occasions, drawing attention to its stress on identifying conditions of
possibility and to its capacity to disturb the obviousness of the present.
Adopting Foucault's genealogy means the sociology of law as
governance involves the compilation of social facts in order not to make
sense of the present, but as a constant demonstration that the present
is nothing special, that it is what it is, a collection of contingencies,
in some ways unique, in some ways the same as other eras. In line with
this, the sociology of law as governance involves the compilation of
social facts from different societies and different eras as well as from
the 'home' society of the sociologist and from the present. We stress,
however, that it is not legal history, in the sense of using facts about
the past to make sense of the present, and it is not legal anthropology,
in the sense of using social facts about other societies to make sense
of the 'home' society. While this point is particularly Foucaultian, it
is not foreign to Durkheim.
With this Foucaultian component added, this methodological
principie means the sociology of law as governance approaches abortion
law with the aim of compiling social facts about abortion to establish
their status as social facts, that is in answer to the central question, how
are these social facts possible, what are their conditions of possibility?
The sociology of law as governance investigates the actors involved in
abortion law (women, doctors, plice, politicians, hospitals) as
contingent social actors. It details the involvement of these actors to
highlight their contingent participation, the conditions of possibility
of their participation; women are involved in line with the strong
operation of beliefs that only women are the 'natural' bearers of
children (even in an era where other technological possibilities exist),
doctors are involved in line with the victory of western medical
expertise over other forms of health expertise, plice are involved in
line with the capacity they acquired only late last century and early this
century as key actors in the governance of public moris. The sociology
of law as governance investigates the actions of these actors - getting
pregnant, deciding to terminate the pregnancy, helping to frame laws
against abortion, or to make abortions more accessible - as contingent
social actions. It details these actions to highlight their contingency,
their conditions of possibility: getting pregnant is made possible not
just by having sex but by the operation of certain attitudes and
practices towards sex, to contraception, etc.; deciding to terminate a
pregnancy is made possible by the operation of certain attitudes
towards it and certain technologies which make it available, etc.;
helpingto frame laws against abortion is made possibleby the operation
of a definite legal system and understandings about the appropriate

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involvement of that legal system in matters of the morality of human


reproduction, etc.; helping to frame laws to make abortion more
accessible is made possible by the same factors but with the crucial
addition of a concern with individual rights, etc.
This arm of our methodological picture is clear enough. For those
readers concerned that the intellectual processes involved here have
no solid base, that social facts are compiled to highlight contingency,
conditions of possibility, at the same time that these conditions are
themselves contingent, that they in turn have conditions of possi
bility, we can only acknowledge their perspicacity. This arm does
indeed have no solid base. We provide a sort of base through the
other principies, but it is not solid in the traditional sense; it does not
pretend to offer any guarantee as to its truth. Our Foucaultian/
Durkheimian universe has turtles all the way down.2

Principie 2
The only tools employed by the sociology of law as governance are
attention to detail and careful generalisation.
At least the flrst half of this principie has been already introduced. By
'attention to detail' we mean the presentation of details of genealogical social facts with great care and exactness. The sociology of law as
governance is concerned to compile more and more details of instances
of law as governance, with as much care and exactness as possible, in
line with the four content principies outlined in the last chapter. This
is to say that the sociology of law as governance involves the detailing
of more and more instances of the 'attempt - incompleteness/failure
- attempt' cycle of the legal management of things, always featuring
different techniques (including possibly different technologies of
power) and political contests around these techniques, always involving
the use of knowledge and always being part of society, part of attempts
at social binding (in the traditional and Foucaultian sense of society).
Of course the attention to detail must also be in line with the four
method principies of this chapter.
Turning now to the second half of this method principie, all eight
principies (four of content, four of method) of the sociology of law as
governance are established, careful generalisations. They are generalisations reached over a long time by induction from a great deal of
careful detail. In using this set of generalisations as the basis for the subdiscipline's work, it has to be said that at least some deduction is
involved in the sociology of law as governance. While we take induction
to be a more likely indication of careful research, neither can be said
to guarantee it. Indeed, nothing can be said to guarantee it. The most
a discipline or subdiscipline can do, if it has attention to detail at its

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heart, by way of ensuring the care which defines this research tool, is
to stress the importance of a careful approach in all its institutional
dealings with its practitioners, through its books, journals, conferences and university departments.
In studying the legal profession, for example, the sociology of law
as governance compiles more and more details of the ways the
profession is governed and the ways it contributes to legal governance
with as much care and exactness as possible, in line with the four
content principies outlined in the previous chapter. This is to say
that the sociology of law as governance details instances of the 'attempt
- incompleteness/failure - attempt' cycle in regard to the legal
profession's governance of court procedures, itself, government actions,
conveyancing, etc. and instances of this cycle in regard to the
governance of the legal profession by governments and some others
(perhaps private industry), with attention paid to the techniques of
governance involved (like professional codes of ethics, government legislation, internal manoeuvring, reliance on traditions, etc.) and to
the political contests around these techniques (like contests between
governments and the profession about government regulation in the
face of the profession's insistence that internal codes of ethics are
sufficient, contests over the profession's attempted monopoly on con
veyancing and on court procedures, contests over a particular business
deal, etc.). The detailing always covers the use of knowledge (the ways
the profession and governments deploy knowledge in their contests
over regulation, the ways knowledge of tradition is used by the
profession to protect itself, etc.) and always covers the social binding
dimensions of the legal governance in question (the ways the profession
constitutes itself as a community, thereby excluding others, the role
of the profession in binding actors around the idea of the rule of law
and due legal process, etc.).
It is on this basis that we discuss the production of new generalisations. As more and more details are compiled, new generalisations aris.
They may concern any aspect of the content principies elaborated in
the previous chapter or method principies elaborated in this chapter,
they may even lead to new content principies or new method principies.
It is impossible to predict what new generalisations will arise and it is
improper to attempt to do so; the sociology of law as governance is
restricted to attention to detail and careful generalisation; prediction
is not a proper part of the subdiscipline's work. What can be properly
said, as a careful methodological generalisation, is that all intellectual
disciplines produce new generalisations; it is historically part of their
work.
The examples we use in outlining the sociology of law as governance
are generalisations arrived at in the manner discussed above. When we
talk of the legal governance of passion killings, marriages, business

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dealings, abortions and the legal profession, we are of course making


use of generalisations, as we indicated, in line with our content
principies and method principies. It may well be argued that our gen
eralisations are not as careful as we are arguing generalisations should
be. Admittedly we do not provide the detail necessary completely to
rebut such a charge; this is not our project in this book (we are
outlining a new subdiscipline here and just as the plans for a new car
plant can be sensibly outlined without the planners having to lay out
every component of every car ever built, or having to prove they
personally can build cars by hand, so an outline for a new subdiscipline
can be sensibly offered without the planners having to lay out every
component of every generalisation ever built, or having to prove they
personally can build generalisations by hand). Nonetheless, we f eel we
have a strong argument against this charge simply by dint of the fact
that no generalisation we use contains even a hint of the reckless
generalisations which have plagued sociology and other social sciences
for most of this century: reckless generalisations to do with, for
example, class, race and gender.
This discussion indicates our final point for this section: there is a
fine line between careful and careless generalisation. As we said in a
slightly different context, the appropriate amount of care cannot be
guaranteed. The most that can be done is to stress the importance of
a careful approach in all institutional dealings. Here, we suggest that
a device for encouraging care, to be used in these dealings, is a rule that
the benefit of the doubt in regard to generalisations must always
favour further detail. In other words, if there is any doubt that a gen
eralisation has not been reached with due attention to detail, it should
not be accepted as a generalisation, further detail should be compiled
before another generalisation is attempted.

Principie 3
The basic production work of the sociology of law as governance must
always be distinguished from the uses of its results.
The attention to detail and careful generalisation which make up the
subdiscipline are not at all the same thing as the uses to which the details
and generalisations are put. We know, especially from Foucault's work,
that the products of the social sciences are used for many and varied
purposes, especially govemmental purposes, not all of them noble.3 The
sociology of law as governance can take some steps to limit the use of
its details and generalisations, but no more than any other social
scientific endeavour; these steps, it must be recognised, are minimal.
For example, the sociology of law as governance may compile many
details about the legal governance of abortion in line with its principies.

Method Principies for the Sociology ofL aw as Governance

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It may even come up with new generalisations which can act as new
principies. These products are the result of the basic work of the
sociology of law as governance. Yet they might be used by any number
of actors not connected to the sociology of law as governance such as
women contemplating abortion, politicians, political activists, plice,
judges, lawyers, doctors, hospital administrators. Furthermore, they
might be used for a variety of purposes - to help in deciding whether
to have an abortion, to help frame legislation banning abortions, to
help frame legislation making abortions more accessible, to help an antiabortion political campaign, to help a pro-abortion political campaign.
The sociology of law as governance can take some steps to limit some
or all of these uses of its products. It can, through its institutional
dealings (university departments, books, journals, conferences),
encourage governments to pass laws limiting the use of its products to,
say, doctors and hospital administrators (the irony of encouraging legal
governance to protect the study of legal governance is overwhelming).
It can encourage other institutions to use internal procedures (like
lawyers' and doctors' codes of ethics) to limit the use of its products;
and it can use existing legislation to do with intellectual property
and defamation to limit the use of its products. It can do little more
than this and these steps are minimal. In modem western societies, with
their elabrate knowledge production, storage and reproduction tech
nologies, the spread of knowledge products like those of the sociology
of law as governance is almost impossible to contain.
The sociology of law as governance cannot survive as an independent subdiscipline if it does not maintain this strict distinction between,
on the one hand, attention to detail and careful generalisation and, on
the other, their uses. The definition of governance at the heart of the
subdiscipline is so wide it is always potentially under pressure from a
huge variety of governmental concerns interested in directing its
production activities. We glimpsed this in the above discussion of the
legal governance of abortion. The situation is similar no matter what
instance of law as governance is being studied whether it is crime, plice,
legal profession, judiciary, contract, company law, or marriage. The dis
tinction featured in this method principie provides at least some
protection against the encroachments of the users of the subdiscipline's
products on its production mechanisms, though of course, as we have
stressed, it does not provide a guarantee of independence.
Within this principie we can see an important difference between
the methodology of the sociology of law as governance and Durkheim's
methodology (and indeed most other established methodologies of
Science and social Science). This difference centres on the notion of the
uses of the knowledge products. For the sociology of law as governance,
all uses are uses, no matter what ame they are given and no matter
which agency or actor is doing the using, including other knowledge-

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producing agencies and even the sociology of law as governance itself.


Crucially, uses are uses and must be separated from the basic knowledge
products even where the uses are called 'causes' or 'explanations' or 'predictions', whether by some other knowledge-producing agency, by some
other actor, or by the sociology of law as governance itself. By our
account, the sociology of law as governance is properly restricted to the
production of details in line with careful generalisations and occasionally
new generalisations (producing new careful generalisations is the only
process in which the subdiscipline can properly use its own products).
It has no business calling some of its products 'causes', 'explanations',
or 'predictions'; these are definitely uses.4
So, in this way, the sociology of law as governance does not produce
'explanations' of crimes, plice actions, the legal profession's conduct,
judges' behaviour, business dealings, contract undertakings, marriage
practices, abortion, etc. It does not seek to, or even accidentally,
uncover 'causes' of crime, plice action, the legal profession's conduct,
etc. and or does it seek to provide predictions about future crimes,
plice actions, etc. It must be remembered that the sociology of law
as governance addresses 'how' questions, not 'why' questions.
This is not to say, we stress, that causes, explanations and predictions
will not be offered on the basis of the subdiscipline's work. How could
they not be? So much intellectual effort in the twentieth century has
been directed, almost obsessively, to causes, explanations and predic
tions. We contend that causes, explanations and predictions are uses
of the subdiscipline's work, not the work itself. Causal, explanatory and
predictive thinking are discouraged in much the same way as Foucault's
work discourages them.

Principie 4
The sociology of law as governance is a continuously reflexive
subdiscipline.
The ground on which the subdiscipline's reflexivity exercises itself has
already been laid: the sociology of law as governance is reflexive in that
among the instances of governance it studies are the uses to which its
own products are put, including the uses to which it itself puts them.
For example, in studying instances of the legal governance of
company takeovers, the sociology of law as governance focuses on the
details of the 'attempt - incompleteness/failure - attempt' cycle (the
techniques of boardroom lobbying, government regulation and the
politics involved, such as contests to impose government regulation
on boardroom lobbying, etc.). These details may or may not be linked
to other details to produce a new, careful generalisation. Throughout
this process, indeed as part of it, the sociology of law as governance

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must compile details of the uses to which its details are put, perhaps
by the actors involved (company directors, government regulators, journalists, etc. may all find the subdiscipline's details useful), perhaps by
other branches of social Science (economics, political Science, even
history, may find these details useful). Of course this must also involve,
wherever and whenever it happens, compiling details of the uses to
which it, itself, puts these details. This may mean compiling details of
the subdiscipline producing new, careful generalisations from its
stockpile of details; this is the only proper use of its products we allow
for the subdiscipline. Or it may mean compiling details of internal uses
of the details which we regard as methodologically improper, but
which we acknowledge as an inevitable part of any discipline's existence.
This is a crucial acknowledgement. It is perfectly consistent with our
theory of governance. The methodological principies, including the
principie restricting the subdiscipline's uses of its own products, are
techniques of governance, techniques for governing the subdiscipline.
This governance, of course, is always incomplete (sometimes to the point
of failure). So we do not expect the methodological principies to work
completely as governing devices. We are building into this principie
of reflexivity an imperative for the sociology of law as governance to
compile details of its own methodologically improper uses of its own
products; of course we hold out no hope that this imperative works
completely; it may even fail spectacularly. This point is extremely
Foucaultian; Foucault is very f ond of forcing disciplines to examine their
internal use of their own products, especially where this means making
them face up to the skeletons in their own cupboards.
The sorts of things we have in mind here, which are not always spec
tacularly dirty, we stress, are that some practitioners of the subdiscipline
may try to establish a new generalisation as a new content principie
while others resist on the grounds that not enough details have been
completed; some practitioners may attempt to import generalisations
into the subdiscipline from elsewhere as new content principies,
perhaps to do with class, race or gender, while others resist, as well as
the much rarer and more sordid instances whereby some practition
ers try to forc other practitioners out of the subdiscipline's institutions
by denying access to journals or refusing tenure.
In this vein, the sociology of law as governance must be continuously
aware of its own institutional nature. The practitioners must be aware
that it is its institutions which set its limits, not some pur quest for
knowledge and/or truth. It is precisely the institutional character of the
subdiscipline (that is, its institutional governance and the politics of
this governance) which determines which objeets are addressed and
the manner in which they are addressed. For example, it is the insti
tutional arrangements (a university department and its relations with
outside bodies, books, journal articles) and the politics associated with

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their governance (internal contests about how to run the department,


contests with the university administration and with other departments
in the university about how to run the department) which determine
whether the subdiscipline addresses a particular object - whether the
plice, the legal profession, business dealings, abortion, crime, or
whatever - and, crucially, how it addresses it (what details are relevant,
which content principies are relevant, which method principies are used,
etc.). Despite the form of this part of the book - detailed abstract
principies - we are aware, and are suggesting that all practitioners within
the subdiscipline must be aware if they are to be good practitioners,
that the institutional governance of the subdiscipline and the politics
associated with it determine the way the subdiscipline goes about its
business, not a set of abstract principies working in the vacuum of
scientific quest for true knowledge. We could not be judged good
Foucaultians without an expression of this awareness.
In line with this, we stress that the subdiscipline can have no predetermined focus onthe 'macro' or the 'micro', as both the objects and
methods consistent with the use of these labels are subject to the
politics of the field, to the governance of the sociology of law as
governance. We have studiously avoided, in our principies, suggesting
that any object is a 'natural' or 'obvious' object of study. We have been
careful to point out that no point of method can ever be applied in a
'pur', institutionally uncontaminated, apolitical way.

Condusion
The four method principies outlined in this chapter make the sociology
of law as governance look remarkably similar to many nineteenthcentury sociological ventures; not just those of Durkheim and Weber,
but also those British and continental sociological projects which
sought to map a social terrain and which saw little difference between
statistics and sociology (Abrams 1968). Obviously the presence of a Fou
caultian component in our methodological discussion, the importance
of genealogy, renders this comparison somewhat inaccurate. Nevertheless, in terms of the spirit of methodology, the comparison is
accurate. We are perfectly happy to be seen to be proposing the outline
of a map. The social terrain we want the map to cover is that on
which law is a crucial part of governance. The sociology of law as
governance is very much a kit for mapping.

Conclusin: The Sociology of Law as


Governance at Work

Introduction
This book has moved its focus from introduction to Foucault's work
on law, through explication and criticism of this work, on to an
outline for a new Foucaultian sociology of law. The first two parts of
the book stand concluded and we use this conclusin to wrap up the
third part. We offer a more detailed example of the work of our new
sociology of law as governance than any presented thus far. We focus
on a standard sociology of law topic, namely, the operation of modern
western plice forces. We discuss this object in terms of the eight
principies of operation of our new sociology of law, but not separately.
We have presented the principies separately for ease of exposition.

The plice as a topic for the sociology of law as


governance
In the day-to-day practice of the subdiscipline the principies do not,
of course, function so neatly. The situation is much more confused as
principies work their way in and out of one another and, as we have
been at pains to stress, sometimes disappear altogether from the sub
discipline's agenda. As we are here presenting a conclusin to our outline
rather than a complete study within the sociology of law as governance,
we do not follow the principies on this complex journey (something
which can only be done on a case-by-case basis any way). However, to
givemore of a flavour of the way they work in practice, we discuss the
subdiscipline's treatment of the plice in terms of three working
clusters of principies.
The first cluster contains the method principie which stresses the com
pilation of social facts in a genealogical manner and the content
principie which stresses the way law as governance is always social and
therefore always part of social binding mechanisms. The sociology of
law as governance compiles details about the plice in terms of their
role in binding communities (which ironically involves dividing them)
around particular codes of right and wrong and around localities or

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ethnicities, but always with an eye to disturbing the obviousness of the


present of modern western policing. The subdiscipline looks to the past
to help in this task. It flnds (and here we are drawing on especially
Foucault 1988b, but also Pasquino 1991; Chapman 1971) a somewhat
different conception of the 'plice', operating from the seventeenth
through to the nineteenth century, from the one we regard as obvious
in the twentieth-century western world (a 'plague of blue locusts'). We
touched on this conception of plice earlier in discussing govern
mentality.
The older doctrine of plice operated alongside the doctrine of
reason of state. While the doctrine of reason of state defined the
principies and methods of government by states and marked it off from,
for instance, God's governing of the world and the father's governing
of the family, the doctrine of plice defined the nature of the state's
rational activity, its aims (especially the utilitarian aim of the happiness
of the population) and 'the general form of the instruments involved'
(Foucault 1988b: 73-4). The authors concerned with formulating this
older doctrine of plice (mainly Germn and Italian authors) understood
plice not as 'an institution or mechanism f unctioning within the state,
but a govemmental technology peculiar to the state; domains,
techniques, targets where the state intervenes' (Foucault 1988b: 77).
T o sum u p this older conception o f the plice: 'In short, life i s the object
of the plice: the indispensable, the useful, and the superfluous. That
people survive, live, and even do better than just that, is what the plice
has to ensure' (Foucault 1988b: 81).
The nineteenth century saw the big shift toward the more limited
understanding of plice we are familiar with today. This 'new plice',
as it is sometimes called, quickly came to focus on criminal activity and
social order. Within these limits and as part of them, new techniques
of surveillance allowed policing to become much more the work of
speciflc 'forces'. It also allowed special or secret plice f orces to develop
to deal with threats to particular govemmental regimes; the policing
ofthe 1848 uprisings acrossEuropeandthe 1871 Paris Commune stand
out as early examples of this type of policing (Foucault 1988b, 1988c;
Styles 1987; Chapman 1971).
Using the genealogical approach in this manner, to unsettle the obvi
ousness of the police's role in twentieth-century societies, the sociology
of law as governance can take a very broad approach to the social
binding work of the plice. It compiles details about all aspects of plice
operations (crime prevention, crime detection, traffic work, social
order maintenance) in terms of the police's technical role in binding
a local community around a code about which behaviours are right and
which are wrong, a code about the destiny of one ethnic group as
opposed to another. In this way, the sociology of law as governance
is in a position to demnstrate connections between the od and new

Conclusin: The Sociology ofLaw as Governance at Work

129

conceptions of plice, that is, it compiles details of plice operations


in terms of their technical role in striving for a technically happy
population, that is, a population that survives and strives for moral and
physical health, however they are defined.
The second cluster of principies combines, on the one hand, attention
to detail and careful generalisation with, on the other hand, the three
generalisations which constitute the three other content principies. This
is to say, the sociology of law as governance compiles details of the
plice in line with the following three careful generalisations: all
instances of policing as legal governance contain elements of attempt
and elements of incompleteness (which at times may be seen as
failure); policing as legal governance involves power and as such
involves politics and resistance; policing as legal governance always
involves knowledge. We deal with each one in turn.
The notion of the 'attempt - incompleteness/failure - attempt' cycle
in regard to policing has been raised several times, especially in
discussing the legal governance of theft and of abortion. We mean by
this that, as with all other instances of governance, policing (whether
formal policing by a public plice forc or a private forc, or even
informal, occasional policing by, say, an insurance company) involves
attempts to control or direct objeets which have come to be the targets
of policing. We know from the above discussion that these objeets vary
over time and place, even so we can sensibly talk about the policing
of crime, moris and happiness as the policing of health, in its broadest
sense. Whatever the particular object being legally governed by policing,
the attempt at control or direction is always incomplete, thus perpetuating the governing process in the manner we have discussed.
What remains to be added in this case is the remarkably open and
direct way in which failure leads to perpetuation, particularly in regard
to the policing of crime. Using plice forces to govern crime comes
nowhere near complete governance. It is fair to say that since crime
statistics began to be systematically kept towards the end of the
nineteenth century, by this important and widely used measure, plice
forces around the world have failed abysmally to control or direct crime
in the way they are explicitly charged with doing. This has produced
little or no surprise on the part of most actors involved in the establishment and maintenance of these forces and produced no sustained
policy suggestion that plice forces be scrapped as a means of governing
crime. Quite the reverse: their failure has consistently led to more and
more resources being directed their way. It would be hard to think of
a better example: the failure of policing as legal governance leads to
more policing as legal governance.
Policing as legal governance involves particular techniques of power
to do with increased surveillance and restrictions on the use of violence.
We glimpsed the surveillance aspect earlier in some of Foucault's

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remarks about the shift which occurred in policing in the nineteenth


century. We understand this term in a technical way, not in terms of
some romantic threat to individual freedom. Policing involves gathering
information and using it in various ways, whether to promote traffic
flow, apprehend speeding drivers, solve crimes, secure more funding,
achieve promotion, find missing persons, control a strike, protect a
political regime, or whatever. We use the term 'surveillance' simply as
a shorthand for the plethora of techniques of gathering and using infor
mation available to the plice.
This is not to deny the importance of the second half of our 'plice
power' formulation concerning the use of violence, but rather to put
it into perspective. Certainly the fact that the plice use violence as a
part of being a plice 'forc' is important. However, without the fairly
mundane information techniques we summarised as 'surveillance'
the potential for violence would be too random for policing as legal
governance to have any potential as the sort of governance modern
government requires. Indeed, plice violence is always subjugated to
plice bureaucratic information techniques as a key feature of modern
policing (even in cases where the procedures fail to govern plice
violence in intended ways). Particular techniques of plice violence (use
of firearms, use of batons, use of handcuffs) must be seen within these
confines.
In this way, we can say 'plice power' is a combination of mundane
information techniques and mundane violence techniques (even
where either or both move beyond formal regulation); 'plice power'
is not the result of a mysterious conspiracy. It is these techniques
which make the existence and operations of modern plice possible.
'The politics of the plice', then, is a summary term for the many
contests which have flourished and continu to flourish over these
techniques. Should plice f orces exist? How should they exist? Should
they be accountable to parliament? Should they produce individual
reports of their actions? Should they use informers? How should they
use informers? Should they use batons? How should they use batons?
Should they use firearms? How should they use firearms? Should they
use motor vehicles? How should they use motor vehicles? (Hogg 1987,
1988; Styles 1987). This list of questions at the core of the ongoing
politics of the plice could go on. What is important about any such
list is that the issues in it signal a technical politics of the plice which
is part of the mechanism whereby the plice contribute to the perpetual
legal governance of societies, part of the 'attempt - incompleteness/
failure - attempt' cycle.
Resistance to or by the plice is also a technical matter for the
sociology of law as governance. Resistance includes the mundane
resistance involved in officers deliberately cutting corners in administrative procedures, people driving round the block to avoid a plice

Conclusin: The Sociology ofL aw as Governance at Work

131

breathalyser unit, officers claiming illegitimate expenses, or giving


f alse ames when questioned as well as the more spectacular resistance
involved in people opposing plice use of firearms, people protesting
about plice violence, officers using excessive violence against protesters,
people shooting plice in order to avoid arrest. Resistance to or by plice
also includes the 'imperative to resist'. This can occur in mundane
resistance such as officers changing bits of their uniform just to be
different, officers driving too fast just for the thrill of it, people abusing
plice just because they are authority figures, and in more spectacu
lar resistance, people killing plice for a thrill or plice bashing
prisoners for pleasure.
Policing as legal governance always involves knowledge in the
selection of objeets for policing - a contingent, historical knowledge
- and the actual policing of those objeets. This process is part of the
administration of information we discussed above. The use of knowledge
is a defining aspect of modern policing. Policing involves simple, definitional knowledge - humans organise things into property, modern
organisations involve administration - which allows access to social
objeets. And policing involves more complex knowledge, used in
attempting greater control or direction on these objeets, for example
fingerprints and informants' information may help apprehend a bank
robber, reports to snior management need statistical evidence. Each
technique of policing as legal governance, whether it is handeuffing,
use of informants, report writing, interrogation of suspeets, involves
a combination of rational and irrational knowledge; thus, for example,
knowledge such as a belief in the evil of 'villains' or an irrational fear
of things going wrong, works alongside very rational procedural
knowledge.
The knowledge involved in modern policing is always available
knowledge - whether it is the dominant rational knowledge of computerised policing or the occasional turn to a clairvoyant to help solve
a murder, the plice can only use knowledge made available by existing
institutions. The knowledge involved in modern policing is increasingly
reliant on the human sciences and their attendant commitment to
statistics. Modern policing uses psychology, sociology, biology, and of
course criminology, alongside modern medical knowledge as it goes
about its business. It features statistics in all its central work; indeed,
a modern plice f orce is almost unimaginable without crime statistics
and other statistical measures of human behaviour.
Our third and final cluster of principies contains two method
principies, concerned with distinguishing the subdiscipline's basic
products from the uses of these products and its reflexivity. As these
are little different for the study of policing than for the study of any
other object, we need spend little time on them. Suffice to say that in
studying the plice, the sociology of law as governance must be

132

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especially careful and reflexive as the situation presents so many


opportunities for the subdiscipline's products to be conflated with their
uses. The details compiled in line with the careful generalisations
about policing are obviously veryuseful to the plice as they go about
their business. This allows the strong possibility for practitioners of the
subdiscipline to push improperly for new generalisations, or to try to
exelude other practitioners as, for example, pressure is applied to a
university department to provide special assistance to the plice in
exchange for greater funding.
In many respeets the sociology of law as governance's approach to
the study of the plice is not dramatically different from other socio
logical approaches to this topic. As we indicated in the previous
chapter, this is not a cause for concern; quite the reverse. In examining
Foucault's work on law and in building a framework for a new sociology
of law as governance out of this examination, we have been clear all
along that the ame Foucault does not signal an intellectual revolution.
Rather, we have shown that it signis an opportunity to return to some
nineteenth- and early twentieth-century sociological endeavours;
henee our keenness to use Foucault's insights alongside those of
Durkheim. The best way to use Foucault's work, we suggest, is as an
instrument for ground clearing, surveying and mapping; such is our
approach to Foucault and law.

Notes

Chapter 1: An Introduction to Foucault


1. The occasion on which Foucault comes closest to providing such
a general synthesis is in Two Lectures' (TL 1980); these lectures
are considered in more detail below.
2. The existence of 'many Foucaults' is not only evident in his
writings but in the ever expanding secondary literature. In these
works we are offered a choice between many 'Foucaults'; as structuralist and anti-structuralist, as compatible with Marxism and as
radically opposed, as modernist and as postmodernist.
3. Our technique for referencing Foucault's texts is as follows. Where
relevant we refer in square brackets to the date of original publication of Foucault's texts; dates in round brackets refer to the
English translation that has been relied upon. For frequently
cited works we have adopted simple abbreviations that are listed
in the References list at the end of the book.
4. Among the many overviews of Foucault which provide a detailed
discussion of the phases of his work the following should be
considered: Dreyfus and Rabinow 1982; Merquior 1985; Sheridan
1980; Shumway 1989. Another approach to Foucault is provided
by biographies that link the personal to the intellectual: Eribon
1991; Macey 1993; Miller 1993. Another approach is provided in
collections of interviews with Foucault; Foucault 1977; P/K 1980;
Foucault 1988a; Foucault 1989.
5. Compare Foucault's 'conditions of possibility' with the interesting but underexplored feature in Marx where he speaks of
'conditions of existence'. Marx's focus is to identify the preconditions (the 'without which') whereas Foucault is more concemed
to stress the absence of any necessary connection between social
elements which account for the specificity of the always unique
'event'.
6. Formulations of this type can be found in the following passages
in Foucault: P/K: 99-100, 142, 188-9, 202-3. Further discussion
of the extent to which Foucault addresses these issues is to be found
in Jessop 1986 and Minson 1980.
7. Foucault also makes use of a related but rather more organic
metaphor when he imagines social relations as a system of 'nets'
133

134

8.

9.

10.
11.
12.
13.

Foucault and Law


or 'networks' (HoS: 45). His most vivid and enduring imagery is
that of the 'capillary' system of power (P/K: 96-7).
Foucault does occasionally make use of the term 'regulation' in
more than a descriptive way. For example, he identifies regulation
as a characteristic form of government of the 'bio-politics of the
population' (HoS 1978:149). Just once he speaks of an historical
state which he calis a 'society of regulation', but he does not
return to develop this theme (G 1979: 21).
Similarly, in an interview from the same period Foucault replies
somewhat ambiguously to a question about liberalism and disci
plinary society: 'I don't do this in order to say that Western
civilization is a "disciplinary civilization" in all its aspeets' (Remarte
on Marx 1991: 167).
For a useful discussion of Foucault's views on disciplinary society
see Smart 1983: 72-3.
It is not implied that the law is in any strong sense the cause of
significant social change; it maybe that law is simply a visible index
of such changes.
For further discussion of the issues involved in Foucault's treatment
of 'strategy' see Gordon 1980, Hunt 1992, Minson 1980, Smart
1983, Wickham 1983.
For fuller discussion of Foucault's relationship to Marxism see
Cousins andHussain 1984, Smart 1983, Poster 1984. For some of
Foucault's own reflections see Foucault 1991.

Chapter 2: Law and Modernity


1. This quotation comes from the 'Preface' to History o f Sexuality vol.
II that appears in Rabinow's valuable collection (Rabinow 1984:
333-9). It does not appear in the standard English translation of
The Use ofPleasure (Foucault 1985a).
2 . The concept 'field of forc relations' is one of Foucault's most
elusive concepts. It is linked to his diagrammatic metaphor of
power relations but he never explicates the connection between
'forc' and 'power' (for discussion see Weedon 1987: 110-11).
3. Later Foucault presented an amended three-stage typology of
forms of government: (1) 'the state of justice' of the Middle Ages
corresponding to a 'society of laws'; (2) the 'administrative state'
of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries 'corresponding to a society
of regulation'; (3) 'governmental state' corresponding to a type of
society controlled by 'apparatuses of security' (G 1979: 21). The
implications of this revised history of government are discussed
below.
4. The term 'juridification' is sometimes used to suggest simply a
quantitative expansin of law ('more law'). A more significant sense
of the concept refers to any situation in which some regulatory

Notes

135

mechanism becomes transormed into distinctively legal form. For


example, when the rules of some sports cease to be part of an oral
tradition and get written down and include rules about subsequent
amendments to the rules or where an employer issues a document
laying down a grievance procedure for employees, these processes
exemplify juridification. The idea of juridification was first used
by Otto Kirchheimer to indicate the way in which law comes to
be used as a means of neutralising political conflicts by subjecting
them to formal legal regulation (Kirchheimer 1969). More recently
the idea has come to refer to the process by which the state
intervenes in areas of social life in ways which limitthe autonomy
of individuis or groups to determine their own affairs; see, for
example, Habermas's discussion of 'Tendencies of Juridification'
(Habermas 1987b: 356-73; Teubner 1986). These tendencies have
led some commentators to worry about a new social disease of
hyperlexis or legal overload (Trubek 1984: 824).
5. It is possible that Foucault's shift of attention towards govemmental
rationality, which occurred towards the end of the 1970s, involves
the dropping or at least downgrading of his equation of premodernity with absolutism, law and sovereignty. Colin Gordon
suggests that this was the case, but unfortunately he offers no
textual evidence to support this view (Gordon 1987).
6. It is important to stress just how long the struggle for the franchise
took; in broad terms the key period was that between 1830 and
1930, when full adult suffrage was secured, and even later in the
United States (Therborn 19 77).
7. The lectures have not, as yet, been translated into English, but are
extensively summarised and discussed by Colin Gordon (Gordon
1991).

Chapter 3: Critique of Foucault's Expulsin of Law


1. It is interesting to note that Foucault comments on Kantorowicz's
(1957) analysis of the king's 'two bodies' (the one being the
physical body of the incumbent and the other the symbolic body
of the Crown). Foucault manages to miss the point of this analysis
which shows that it is only by virtue of these 'two bodies' that a
conception of sovereignty can subsequently emerge which is not
tied to the literal figure of a monarch.
2. While we make no claim to confirm the suggestion, there is a sense
in which Foucault seems to have experienced a profound political
disillusionment in the period of 'normalisation' after 1968 (Eribon
1991: 274-7). The difficulty that confronted him and which he
never made any direct attempt to resolve was that, politically, there
was 'nowhere to go'. To swing to the right (as did Andr
Glucksmann, one of his young associates during this period) was

136

Foucault and Law

for Foucault 'unthinkable'; it is perhaps not surprising that he


espoused a certain rather loosely formulated anarchism, while at
other times he avoided invitations to comment on the political
implications of his intellectual positions.
3. For ampliflcation of this point, along with many others about
Foucault's treatment of punishment and prisons, see Garland
1990.
4. It should be noted that the juridification thesis comes in versions
with very different political lineages; contrast Hayek's neoliberalism (Hayek 1982) with Habermas's neo-socialist versin
(Habermas 1987b).

Chapter 4: Governance and its Principies


1. Our sketch of governmentality is heavily indebted to Gavin
Kendall.
2. Our formulations regarding failure are heavily indebted to Jeff
Malpas.

Chapter 6: Method Principies for the Sociology of Law as


Governance
1. The formulation of this example owes a special debt to Albury
(1989).
2. There are several versions of the derivation of this expression. As
we understand it, it derives from the aftermath of a talk given early
this century by the philosopher C.S. Peirce. After his talk Peirce
was approached by a member of the audience. 'I enjoyedyour talk,'
she said, 'but it doesn't quite fit my theory of the universe.' 'Ah,'
replied Peirce, 'and what might that theory be?' 'That the universe
stands on the back of a giant elephant.' 'Very interesting,' the
philosopher responded, 'but I must ask: on what does the elephant
stand?' 'Easy,' his interlocutor answered calmly, 'it stands on the
back of a giant turtle.' Fascinated, Peirce was about to continu his
line of questioning, but didn't get the chance. 'Don't bother
asking,' she politely suggested, 'it's turtles all the way down.'
3. See also Bauman (1989) for an interesting discussion of the ignoble
ends to which the Nazis put some fairly standard, quite noble
results of sociological work.
4. As Wittgenstein says 'it can never be our job to reduce anything
to anything, or to explain anything' (1958:18; see also Holmwood
and Stewart 1991).

References

Writings of Michel Foucault


Where relevant the date of original publication is given in square
brackets; dates in round brackets (with frequently cited works in abbreviation) refer to the English translation that has been relied upon.
Madness and Civilization: A History oflnsanity in the Age o f Reason [1964]
(trans. A.M. Sheridan Smith) New York: Harper & Row, 1965 (M&C
1965).
The Order o f Things: An Archaeology o f the Human Sciences [1966] London:
Tavistock, 1970 (OoT 1970).
The Archaeology o f Knowledge and the Discourse o f Language [1969]
(trans. Alan Sheridan) London: Tavistock, 1972 (AoK 1972).
The Birth ofthe Clinic: An Archaeology o f Medical Perception [1963] (trans.
A.M. Sheridan) London: Tavistock, 1973 (BC 1973).
I, Pierre Rivire, Having Slaughtered My Mother, My Sister and My Brother:
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Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews (ed.
Donald Bouchard) Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977.
The History ofSexuality vol. 1: An Introduction [1976] (trans. Robert
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'Governmentality' 6 Ideology & Consciousness 5-21 (1979) and in
Burchell e t a l, 1991, pp. 87-104 (G 1979).
Power/Knowledge. Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977 (ed.
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'Omnes et Singulatim: Towards a Criticism of "Political Reason'" in S.
McMurrin (ed.) The Tanner Lectures on Human Vales (vol. 2)
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981, pp. 223-54 (O&S
1981).
137

138

Foucault and Law

'The Order of Discourse' [1971] in R. Young (ed.) Untying the Text: A


Post-Structuralist Reader London: Routledge, 1981, pp. 48-78 (OoD
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'Is it Useless to Revolt?' 8 Philosophy & Social Criticism 1-9 (1981).
'The Subject and Power' in Herbert Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow Michel
Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1982, pp. 208-26 (S&P 1982).
The Foucault Reader (ed. Paul Rabinow) New York: Pantheon, 1984.
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'On the Genealogy of Ethics: An Overview of Work in Progress' in Paul
Rabinow (ed.) The Foucault Reader New York: Pantheon, 1984, pp.
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The History ofSexualityvol. 2: The Use ofPleasure [1984] New York: Viking,
1985 (1985a).
The History o f Sexuality vol. 3: The Care o fth e Self [1984] New York:
Pantheon, 1985 (HoS 1985b).
'Technologies of the Self' in Martin Luther, Huck Gutman and Patrick
Hutton (eds.) Technologies o fth e Self Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988a.
'Politics and Reason' in Politics, Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and Other
Writings 1977-1984 (ed. L.D. Kritzman) New York: Routledge, 1988
(1988b).
'The Dangerous Individual' in Politics, Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and
Other Writings 1977-1984 (ed. L.D. Kritzman) New York: Routledge,
1988 (1988c).
Foucault Live: Interviews 1966-1984 (ed. Sylvre Lotinger) New York:
Semiotext(e), 1989.
Remarks on Marx: Conversations with Duccio Trombadori (trans. R. James
Goldstein and James Cascaito) New York: Semiotext(e), 1991.

Other works
Abrams, Philip 1968 Origins o f British Sociology, 1834-1914 Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Albury, Rebecca 1989 'Abortion? But I Thought That Was Settled Years
Ago' 31/32 Refractory Girl.
Alexander, Jeffrey C. (ed.) 1988 Durkheimian Sociology: Cultural Studies
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Althusser, Louis 1969 'Contradiction and Overdetermination' in For
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Austin, John 1955 The Province o f furisprudence Determined [1832]
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Bailey, Frederick G. 1983 The Tactical Uses o f Passion: An Essay on
Power, Reason and Reality Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

References

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Bauman, Zygmunt 1989 Modernity and theHolocaust Cambridge: Polity


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Berman, Marshall 1982 All Thatls Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience o f
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Bevis, Phil, Michle Cohn and Gavin Kendall 1989 'Archaeologizing
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Economy & Society 323-45.
Burchell, Graham 1991 'Peculiar Interests: Civil Society and Governing
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Burchell, Graham, Colin Gordon and Peter Miller (eds.) 1991 The
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Carrithers, Michael, Steven Collins and Steven Lukes (eds.) 1985 The
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Chapman, Brian 1971 Plice State London: Macmillan.
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Curtis, Bruce 1992 Trie Government By Choice Men?: Inspection, Education,
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Dandeker, Christopher 1991 Surveillance, Power and Modernity
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Dreyfus, Herbert and Paul Rabinow 1982 Michel Foucault: BeyondStructuralism and Hermeneutics Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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Durkheim, Emile 1964 The Rules o f Sociological Method [1895] New


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Foucault and Law

Durkheim, Emile 1965 The Elementaiy Forms ofReligious Life [1912] New
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Dworkin, Ronald 1986 Law's Empire Cambridge, Mass: Harvard
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Power/Knowledge Brighton: Harvester, pp. 229-59.
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Habermas, Jrgen 1987a The Philosophical Discourse o f Modemity: Twelve
Lectures Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
Habermas, Jrgen 1987b The Theory o f Communicative Action: vol. 2:
Lifeworld and System Boston: Beacon Press.
Habermas, Jrgen 1993 Facticity and Validity: Contributions to a Democratic
Theory o fL a w and the Constitutional State (trans. William Rehg)
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Hacking, Ian 1975 The Emergence o f Probability Cambridge: Cambridge
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Hacking, Ian 1990 The Taming o f Chance Cambridge: Cambridge
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Hacking, Ian 1991 'How Should We Do the History of Statistics?' in
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Hall, Stuart 1988 'The Toad in the Garden: Thatcherism Among the
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Michael Hogan et al. (eds.) Death in theHands o fth e State Sydney:
Redfern Legal Centre Press.
Holmwood, John and Alexander Stewart 1991 Explanation and Social
Theory London: Macmillan.
Humphreys, Christmas 1949 ZenBuddhism London: Heinemann.
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Jackson, Stevi 1993 'Even Sociologists Fall in Love: An Exploration in
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Jessop, Bob 1986 'Poulantzas and Foucault on Power and Strategy' 3
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the Capitalist State in its Place Cambridge: Polity Press.
Kantorowicz, Ernst 1957 The King's Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval
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Katz, Jack 1988 Seductions o f Crime: Moral and Sensual Attractions in Doing
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Merquior, Jos 1985 Foucault London: Fontana Press.

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Index

Albury, 136
Althusser, 88, 92, 109, 112
always-already, 88-9, 92-4, 109,
112-14, 118
anthropology, 119
Austin, 60
Bailey, 87, 109
Bataille, 85
Bauman, 136
biology, 7-8, 91-2, 111, 131
body, 4, 13, 15-16, 19, 49, 69,
135
Borges, 9
Buddhism, 98
Burchell, 75
calculation, 20, 27, 29, 53, 76,
93, 99-103, 111-13; see also
statistics
capitalism, 15-16, 29-30, 35
cause(s), 6, 5 3 ,1 2 4 , 134
chance, 7, 28, 32; see also contingency
citizenship, 53, 64, 67, 134
class, 4, 18, 19-20, 28, 30-4, 41,
47,
69, 86, 122, 125
classical, 10, 34, 43-5, 56, 59;
see also pre-modern
conditions of possibility, 6, 9,
12,
33, 119-20, 133; see
also Foucault
conspiracy, 47, 81, 83-4, 104,
106, 130
consumption, 68, 96
contingency, 33, 119-20, 131;
see also chance

crime, 21, 59-60, 64-5, 68, 86,


95, 101, 105-7, 114, 123-4,
128, 130-1
criminology, vii, 131
Curtis, 26
de Sade, 86
death, 80, 86, 97-8, 116
democracy, 48, 61-2
discipline(s), 5, 9, 13, 20-4, 29,
43, 46-59, 61-3, 65-70, 98,
121
discourse, 8-14, 30, 34, 39, 42
domination, 13, 15, 18-20, 30,
34-5, 40, 42, 45-6, 48, 56,
62
Donzelot, 93
Durkheim, 78, 85, 92, 94-7,
99-100, 112, 114, 116-120,
123,126, 132
Dworkin, 59, 66
economics, 8, 64, 77, 90, 125
ethics, 13, 23-4, 35, 70,1 2 1 ,1 2 3
Ewald, 62, 66-7
explanation, 124
failure, 17, 29-30, 71, 79-80,
83, 88, 94, 97, 102-3, 105,
107-9, 114-16, 120-1,
124-5; see also governance;
incompleteness
Fildes, 25
Foucault: method of, 3, 6, 7,
11-12, 14, 15, 18, 23-4, 28,
31-2, 35, 40, 49, 56;
politics of, 12-13, 15, 35-6,

144

Index
64; style of writing, viii,
3-6; see also genealogy;
governance; government;
law; politics; power
freedom, 44, 71, 86
functionalism, 97, 116
Garland, 136
gaze, 21, 47, 49, 69; see also
surveillance
genealogy, 6, 32, 70, 88, 117,
119-20, 126, 128
generalisation, 23, 82, 120-3,
127, 129, 132
Glucksmann, 135
Gordon, 54, 64, 75, 96, 135
governance: of clean
bathrooms, 80-2, 86, 88,
90; cycle of, 83, 88, 120-1,
124, 129-30; definition of,
56,
78-9; of economies,
81-5, 8 8-90; of ethnic
strife, 93-5; of love affairs,
78, 80-3, 85-94; of unem
ployment, 79-80;
perpetuation of, 80-2, 94,
97, 114, 116, 129-30; see
also law; politics; power
government: definition of, 79;
Foucault and, 21-8, 49-50,
52-3, 63, 67, 134; see also
governance; government
ality
governmentality: definition of,
24-6, 52, 75-6; periodisation of, 27, 76-7; see also
governance; government
Habermas, 61, 63, 67, 135-6
Hart, 60
Hay, 104
Hayek, 136
history, vii, 5 ,2 8 ,3 2 ,4 0 ,1 1 9 ,
125

145

human sciences, 5, 51, 76-7,


91-2, 111, 131
ideology, 23, 34, 58, 60, 62-3
incompleteness, 79-81, 83,
87-8, 94-7, 102-9, 114-6,
120-1, 124-5, 129-30; see
also failure; governance
imperative to resist, 85-7, 103,
107-8, 131; see also
governance; resistance
insurance, 66-7, 93, 101, 112,
129
juridification, 48, 50, 62, 65-6,
70, 134-6
justice, 47, 51, 56, 64, 134
Kantorowitz, 135
Katz, 85-6, 97, 103,107-8
Kendall, 136
Keynesian, 54
Kirchheimer, 135
knowledge: as available, 99,
109, 111, 131; formal, 35,
42, 68, 90-1, 109, 111;
informal, 32, 90-1; and
institutions, 13-14, 68, 91;
irrational, 85-6, 110-11,
131; rational, 85-6, 90,
110-11, 128, 131; uses of,
8, 27, 87-90, 108, 110,
121-2, 124-6, 129, 131-2
language, 7, 42
law: and constitutionalism, 41,
43, 58, 61-2, 67; decline
of, 56; definition of, 41,
45, 58, 60, 99-100, 102;
and labour, 65-6; as
operations, 99, 101; as
power, 40, 43, 48, 63; and
special staff, 99, 101-2; use
of term, 39; and women,
63, 85, 106, 118-9, 123; see

146

Foucault and Law

also governance; politics;


power; regulation
legal governance: of abortion,
118-20, 122-4, 126, 129; of
business, 102, 105-10, 113,
121, 123-6; of contracts,
102-3, 105-6, 109-10,
123-4; of legal profession,
1 2 1 -3 ,1 2 6 ; of marriage,
105-11, 114, 121, 123-4; of
passion killings, 103,
105-10, 114, 1 2 1 ;oftheft,
100-2, 129; see also
governance; law
legal studies and scholarship,
vii, viii
liberal(ism), 13, 16-17, 35, 46,
54-5, 63-4, 68, 70, 76-7,
100,
110, 134
linguistics, 7-9
Luhmann, 59
Machiavelli, 78, 82
Macaulay, 103
Malpas, 136
Maoism, 63-4
Marx, 4, 26, 34
Marxism, 4, 14, 16-18, 23, 25,
33-4, 40, 46, 69, 100, 133
Mauss, 118
Merton, 28
Miller, James, 85-6
Miller, Peter, 75
Mills, 29
modern(ity), 1 0 -1 1 ,1 6 , 20, 23,
26-7, 29, 32, 34-5, 39,
43-8, 52-9, 61-6, 68-71,
76, 90-1, 93, 100, 102, 104
106, 112, 116, 123, 127-8,
130-1
Nazism, 114, 136
Nietzsche, 11, 42, 85
normalisation, 48-51, 57-8,
66-9, 95, 9 9 ,1 0 0 ,1 3 5

Palmer, 62
Parsons, 78
Pearce, 62
Peirce, 136
penology, 91
philosophy, vii, 5, 24, 40, 85,
117,136
plice and policing, 4, 27, 47,
52-3, 64, 101-5, 109,
115-6, 118-9, 123-132
political economy, 76-7
political science, 125
politics: and advantage/disadvantage, 82, 84-5, 106-7;
analysis of, 81; as contesta
tion, 82-6, 104, 120-1,
124, 126; definition of, 82;
technical nature of, 82, 84,
130; see also governance;
law; power
Poulantzas, 31, 59
power: and absolutism, 46, 53,
60-2; aggregation of,
17-19, 30-1, 60, 69-71;
constraints on, 42, 62;
definition of, 18, 33-4, 41,
8 0 -1 ,1 3 4 ; juridical form
of, 40, 44, 46-8, 50, 54;
and knowledge, 12-14, 27,
41; as machine, 19-20, 22,
46, 49, 70, 80-1, 104;
micro form of, 20, 41, 47,
49, 51, 70; monarchical
form of, 43-6, 49, 54, 58,
60, 65, 135; as negative,
14-15, 17, 34, 40-1, 50, 60,
65, 68-9, 81-2, 104; as
positive, 15-16, 41, 81; see
also governance; law;
politics
pre-modern, 4, 44, 49, 56, 59,
62, 68, 7 0 ,1 3 5 ; see also
classical
predictions, 121, 124
prisons, vii, 4-6, 13, 17, 21, 29,

Index
45-7, 52, 60, 101-3, 136;
see also punishment
psychiatry, 8, 31, 42, 57, 69,
91
psychology, 5-6, 1 3 ,1 6 , 21, 30,
40, 43, 46, 48-52, 59-60,
65, 91, 100-2, 136
punishment, 4, 6, 13, 16, 21,
30, 40, 43, 46, 48-52,
59-60, 65, 91, 100-2, 136;
see also prisons

147

114-5; and sacred/profane,


95-7, 114-16
social work, 57
society, 5 5 ,8 1 ,9 2 ,9 4 ,9 6 ,1 1 3 ;
see also social; social binding
sociology, 5, 24, 29, 47, 77-8,
83-6, 89-90, 92-3, 99-100,
111, 117-18, 122, 131-2
sociology of law, vii, 75, 99,
110, 117, 127
sociology of law as governance:
and attention to detail,
Rabinow, 134
120-9; method of, x, 75,
reason of state, 7 6 ,1 2 8
84-5, 88-90, 92, 99, 102,
reflexivity, 124, 131-2
112, 116-19, 120-6, 131;
regulation, 22, 26, 31, 41, 44,
and social facts, 117-18,
48,
50-7, 60, 62, 66-8,
120, 127
sovereignty, 20, 22-3, 34, 40-1,
70-1, 121, 124-5, 130,
134-5; see also law
43-5, 49-50, 54-8, 61-9,
repression, 14, 23, 33-4, 41,
135
84-5, 106
Stalinism, 33
resistance, 17, 32, 82-5, 97,
state, 16-18, 20, 22, 25, 27-31,
106, 108, 12931; see also
33-4, 40-4, 46, 48-9, 52,
governance; imperative to
54-6, 59, 61, 64-8, 71, 76,
resist
81, 104, 128, 134-5
right(s), 44-5, 48, 50, 54, 58,
statistics, 25-7, 77, 81, 91-2,
60-4, 71, 120
111, 126, 129, 131; see also
calculation
Santos, 31
strategy, 19-20, 28, 30-2, 40,
security, 23, 50, 53-4, 77,134
45, 69, 77; see also tactics
self, 15, 2 3 -4 ,2 9 ,4 9 , 55, 60,
structuralism, 6, 29, 133
68, 70, 79-81, 83, 87, 90-1,
subject(ivity), 7, 20, 23-4, 28-9,
103, 107
32, 49-50, 54, 62
sexology, 91-2, 111
surveillance, 20-1, 46-7, 49-50,
social: Foucaultian use of, 10,
57, 68-9, 128-30; see also
55,
78, 92-4, 112-14, 120;
gaze
traditional use of, 92,
11 2 -1 4 ,1 2 0 ; see also social
tactics, 14,16, 28, 31, 40, 52-3,
binding; society
56,
63, 69; see also strategy
social binding: and Communi
Taylorism, 65
cations, 95-6, 114-15; and
thinking and thought, 7-10,
community, 9 5 ,1 1 4 -1 5 ,
42, 44, 68, 78, 91-3, 98,
121,128; and morality, 95,
101,
113
114-15, 120, 129; and
truth, 11-12, 16, 24, 32, 34-5,
physical structures, 95-6,
41-2, 120, 125-6

148

Foucault and Law

turtles, 120, 136


violence, 42, 44, 60, 84,
87, 104, 106, 108,
129-31

Weber, vii, 4, 27, 39, 76,


78, 99-100, 117, 126
Wittgenstein, 136
Zen Buddhism, 98

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